Courts should be proactive on RTIs

DNA ; Tuesday ; Aug 31, 2010 : Mumbai ;

When it comes to addressing the concerns of the common man, the higher courts generally come off smelling of roses. But not when it comes to the Right to Information Act (RTI). For one, the Supreme Court itself is fighting shy of disclosures and has appealed against a Delhi high court verdict in this regard despite warnings from former chief justices not to do so.

For another, courts are now proving to be drag on swift information disclosures under the Act, according to chief information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi.

The RTI Act is one of the best pieces of pro-citizen legislation we have seen. It empowers the individual against the politician-bureaucrat nexus. It allows the small man to question the actions of the big, whether it is about how money is spent on projects, or why they take inordinately long to complete. At the micro level, it enables the citizen to check the progress on things that matter to him: what’s happening to my ration card or passport application?

In the initial years, the Act had had a salutary effect. Fearing

exposure of their mistakes or incompetence, many officials made an effort to make sure that RTI submissions didn’t show them up short. Fear of the RTI also pressured many bureaucrats to do their jobs diligently. But now the empire has begun to strike back.

Some bureaucrats have now chosen to go to court to avoid having to disclose information. This has had the net effect of scuttling the intent of the RTI Act.

Given that India has some three crore pending cases in courts, the easiest option for a bureaucrat seeking to avoid a particular RTI application is to get a stay order. There is always a good chance that his case will disappear under the haystack of pending cases. Once the matter ends up in court, it falls upon the applicant to get a favourable order to send the RTI application back to the official for the information sought. This only increases the applicant’s burden.

There is no doubt that some RTI applications need to be examined by the courts on whether the information sought is within the jurisdiction of the Act. But they need to fast-track such applications, and, when necessary, come down heavily on bureaucrats whose intent was to delay things. Only by doing so will our judiciary be seen as being on the side of the ordinary citizen.