Mainstream: Haryana: Friday, August 17, 2018.
Although the
Right to Information has been declared by the Supreme Court of India, in
various judgments, as a right inherent in Article 19(A) of the Fundamental
Rights given in the Indian Constitutions, as is evident from the perusal of
Aruna Roy and MKSS Collective, The RTI Story (2018), the RTI regime could be
institutionalised in India only in 2005 after a long and sustained struggle by
the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) and the National Campaign for
People’s Right to Information on (NCPRI). The formation of the Left
Front-backed UPA (I) Government in 2004 and the inclusion of committed persons,
like Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze in the National Advisory Council, had also
facilitated it.
The RTI Act
(2005) granted all the citizens of India to seek information from all the
public authorities within the stipulated time-frame. It not only set up an
information regime comprising at the Assistant Public Information Officers
(APIOs), Public Information Officers (PIOs), First Appellate Authorities
(FAAs), but also made provision for Self-Disclosure of Information by all the
public authorities at the sub-district, district, State, and national levels.
Besides the Central Information Commissions and State Information Commissions
were set up to not only act as the Second Appellate Authorities (SAAs) but also
for acting as the watchdogs of the RTI Regime.
However, this
game-changer, which aimed at the dawn of a transparent, responsible, responsive
and people-friendly regime for ensuring good governance and for deepening
democracy in India, has been facing clandestine resistence from the bureaucracy
and the political elite right from the outset.
Moreover, it
has been grappling with the operational problems like poor suo-moto disclosure,
ambiguities in definitions, poor maintenance of records, appointment of junior
and untrained officers as the PIOs and the pressures on them to not to
discharge their duties honestly and denial of infrastructural facilities and
incentives to them. The packing of the Information Commissions with loyal
retired civil servants and the other faithful from various strata and the
negative attitude of a section of the judiciary has further compounded the
problem. But at the same time those information-seekers who misuse the
provisions of the RTI Act for blackmailing the public servants and for
harnessing their colleagues and those who have been seeking frivolous
information have also brought a bad name to the RTI regime. The persistence of
confusion in interpreting forms and the formats, lack of clarity on postal
charges in the RTI rules of various States and the inadequacy of uniformity in
these and heavy cost of information have been other impediments in the path of
smooth functioning of the RTI regime.
It is being
argued that activisation of public authorities, better management of records
through computerisation, effective suo-moto disclosures by the public
authorities appointment of senior officers as PIOs or creation of a separate
cadre for them and improving their service conditions or giving them adequate
incentives and protection may be able to retrieve the situation. The
streamlining of the working of the Information Commissions through the
appointment of persons with a legal bent of mind, and making it obligatory for
them to undergo Induction Programmes before joining. Besides, the grant of
financial autonomy as well as the power to punish non-compliers, the offenders
under the Contempt of the Commission and such other steps that may prove
functional for the RTI regime.
But these are
very simplistic explanations of the malady and superfluous suggestions for a
deep-rooted problem which is multi-dimensional in character. Its roots can be
traced to the persistence of the colonial culture of the bureaucracy, continued
absence of a civic culture among the citizens and the perennial reluctance of
the particular elite for empowering the citizens. Likewise, capacity-building
of the Information-seekers through awareness campaigns and of the
Information-providers through systematic training would not suffice because the
very mindsets of both needs to be changed by creating a culture of transparency
among the former and the civic culture among the latter.
Above all,
the civil society will have to remain vigilant for fostering the attempts of
the political dispensation to weaken the Information regime in the name of
reforming it by formulating the RTI Rules and by changing the service
conditions of the Information Commissioners. Otherwise, the sacrifices of the
RTI activists who lost their lives for protecting the RTI regime would prove to
be exercises in futility. It is better late than never. Let us remember, it has
been aptly said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” The media will
also have to remain vigilant for acting as the watchdog of the RTI regime.
Above all, the public intellectuals will have to play a pro-active role in this
context. The protest by the RTI activists at New Delhi against the attempts to
undermine the RTI regime alone would not be enough to dissuade those who are
hell-bent upon doing so.
It may be
added by way of a footnote that Prof Iqbal Narian, a doyen among the political
scientists, had famously remarked that, in the ultimate analysis, it is the
constitutional reality that determines the political reality. It may be
supplemented by the observation that the institutional reality also depends on
the political reality. The commitment of the ruling dispensation is the basic
pre-requisite for the success of the RTI regime in India.
Dr Rajvir S.
Dhaka is a Senior Faculty Member and In-charge, RTI Help Desk, Haryana
Institute of Public Administration, Gurugram (Haryana).