CNBC:
New Delhi: Thursday, 15 October 2015.
The Right to
Information Act or the RTI Act came into force in 2005, and over the last
decade has helped millions of citizens demand accountability from the
government. It was used to unearth details of mega scams Commonwealth Games to
coal allotment under the UPA government. As the RTI Act turns 10, questions are
being raised on whether it can survive and stay relevant?
Social
activist Aruna Roy, the force behind the RTI, is not pessimistic about the
future of the Act, while Gopal Krishna Gandhi, former governor of West Bengal
and an ex-diplomat equates the RTI Act to the right to vote.
Below is the
transcript of Aruna Roy and Gopal Krishna's interview with CNBC-TV18's Shereen
Bhan.
Q: I was
looking at the column written by Satyananda Mishra the former CIC on why he
believes that the RTI may in fact lose its relevance. He lists out a bunch of
things and I want to get your opinion on whether you believe the right to
information act will stay relevant or not. He says long pendency in most
information commissions, the absence of enforcement provisions in the law, the
law being too ambitious and unrealistically drafted. Most public authorities
failing to digitise records, do all of those things seem like reasons why the
RTI instrument, the legislation itself is perhaps not going to be very relevant
going forward?
Roy: It
depends on where you sit and what you see. I see 8 million Indians now getting
the right to question the states, the governments, their departments, what they
interface with, to question corruption, to question arbitrary use of power, to
get their rations, to get medicines and it is a phenomenal change from what I
saw 25 years ago in rural India amongst the poor in urban India, even ordinary
citizens. So, there are always problems. Any enactment, any legislation will
bring forward a huge hoarder problems and in this case we are really asking for
a share power from the system. So, the system is going to react and these are reactions
of the system that Satyananda Mishra has defined. Those will have to be fought,
they will have to be changed. 15-20 years ago no one thought we would get the
right to information and we got it. The UPA - I, the National Advisory Council
and the chairperson Sonia Gandhi were all politicians but they pushed the RTI
through. Of course 11 months later they asked for a amendment but the fact
remains that they pushed it through. So, it depends on people whether we can
really make the political establishment see it our way, whether we can make
bureaucracy work, I am not at all pessimistic.
Q: Would
you share that optimism because if I look at the CIC annual report findings of
2013-14, let us just take a look at the rejection rate - at the PMO 20.5
percent, Rashtrapati Bhavan almost 11 percent, Supreme Court almost 24 percent,
CAG 7 percent, the ministry of corporate affairs about 29 percent, the power
ministry 16 percent. What gives you the optimism if at all you share Aruna
Roy's optimism about the RTI remaining meaningful and relevant going forward?
Gandhi: RTI
will be as strong and as irreversible as the right to vote. The percentage of
voters, turnout at elections is not as good as it can be or it should be, that
does not mean that the right to vote has become irrelevant. RTI is a twin to
right to vote. It is an ingredient of our democracy and an essential part of
our republic. It can only grow stronger and stronger.
There will be
disappointments with the nature and the pace of official responses but they can
be no going back. The RTI act is here to stay.
Q: The RTI
Act is here to stay but let us talk about the road ahead and how do we make
this act much more robust when we talk about implementation and effective
implementation. If I were to ask you what is it that you would like to see now
for effective implementation and use of the RTI act?
Gandhi: The
most important thing would be for the RTI movement to regain its character as a
movement and as a catalyst for further deepening and intensification of the
provisions of the act and one of the things that need to be done very quickly
is the follow up on the appointment of the Lokpal. It has been languishing for
a very long time and completely inexcusably and the activation of the
Whistleblowers Act and the Grievance Redressal Act these are essential
corollaries of the RTI act and the movement must continue to ask for it and so
should the media in the country and all concerned citizens.
Q: If I
can put to you one of the other comments that came in from Satyananda Mishra
and he said that he worries about the lack of civil society enthusiasm for the
RTI. He believes that civil society enthusiasm has declined and that activists
like yourself perhaps or others have moved on to other spheres looking out for
other interests, so to speak. Do you believe this movement that Mr Gandhi was
talking about, how do we keep that movement alive?
Roy: The
movement is alive. We are not seen on television because we are not a priority.
The print media doesn't report us because we are not a priority because you
have fashions, you have times when you think something is fashionable we are
there, we don't think it is fashionable we are not there. And we are not in
Delhi, we are spread out all over the country in small villages, every day
people are questioning authority. Those 8 million applications are put in every
year. If somebody or the other every so many kilometres that is questioning
authority. If this is not keeping the movement alive, I don't know what is.
It is an act
which is being used and it is asking questions and demanding answers in so many
multiple ways and we must stop thinking of the RTI as of itself. It is a
transformatory act. It makes other act perform. It makes other people deliver,
it makes other departments - it might be the environment, it might be the
education, we recently have a huge program in Rajasthan where we are visiting
every single government school called Shiksha ka Sawaal which the Rajasthan
Patrika is covering where we are going to every single government school with
students to look at basic right to education facilities.
Right to
information has to be applied to something else and if that is done it will
deliver and all of us are working, but we don't necessarily congregate in
Jantar Mantar or outside parliament. We work at several places in this country
and we do, believe me.
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