Hindustan
Times: New Delhi: Tuesday, 21 July 2015.
When the
Right to Information Act (RTI) was passed in 2005, the view across the
political spectrum was that the law will provide access to services and rights,
and bring in transparency.
Unfortunately,
10 years on, that ambition/promise is far from fulfilled because authorities at
different levels have more often than not stonewalled information requested by
citizens by using different sometimes even lame excuses.
Take for
example, the College of Vocational Studies, Delhi University. In 2012, Kumar
Ram Krishna, an RTI applicant and a teacher in the college, who suspected irregularities
in the buying of books, filed a query seeking yearly and department-wise
details of purchases and payments made to booksellers between 2003 and 2012.
Instead of
providing the information, the college asked him to pay `80,000 for honorarium
and conveyance charges to the staff to be engaged for compiling the
information.
According to
reports, till 2014, there were 962,630 requests pending disposal. In less than
3% of the cases, penalties were imposed on government departments. The reasons
for delays are: Poor record-keeping practices, lack of adequate infrastructure
and staff for running information commissions and dilution of supplementary
laws like the whistleblowers protection Act.
While the law
may not be very popular among public authorities, yet muzzling it is not a
great idea because transparency is the bedrock of any democracy. In fact, the
Act should be extended to include political parties and public bodies.
Earlier this
month, the Supreme Court sought a response from all national political parties
on why they should not be brought within the ambit of the Act. There is a
strong case in its favour as political parties get donations on the ‘tacit
understanding’ that when they come to power, they will return the favour.
The details of
such transactions can only come to light if political parties are within the
ambit of the RTI as their income is exempt from taxes. There really can be no
argument against removing the veil from such dubious practices and honour a
promise they made in 2005.
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