Business Times: New Delhi: Sunday, August 27, 2017.
Experts have
said that there will be a conflict between the RTI Act and the right to privacy
now as the Supreme Court has upheld it as a fundamental right. Read on to know
what they have said.
The Supreme
Court might have upheld the right to privacy as a fundamental right, but
activists and experts are of the opinion that this ruling will in turn affect
the Right to Information (RTI).
Supreme
Court upholds privacy as fundamental right: For the common citizen, it's a huge
relief.
"Privacy
has been addressed by the RTI Act, under sections 8(1)(j) and Section 11,"
former chief information commissioner A N Tiwari told Times of India.
How will it
affect common man?
The section
8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005, says that "information which relates to
personal information and the disclosure of which has no relationship to any
public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the
privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the
State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may
be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of
such information: Provided that the information, which cannot be denied to the
Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person."
The section
11 of the RTI act, which also will be infringed by the Right to privacy deals
with third party information.
"However,
the fact is that there is certain conflict between the RTI Act and the right to
privacy . What is possible is that orders for disclosure will now be
challenged," stated Tiwari while adding that both the aforementioned
sections, may itself be challenged, as the definition of "public
good" gets questioned.
"RTI had
created a weak situation for disclosure of private information.Pressure to
disclose is high in public authorities, prompting private information being
disclosed for 'public good'," said Tiwari.
"The use
of the term is too wide. Someone is bound to challenge the definition of the
term and the sections, now that right to privacy is a fundamental right,"
he explained.
Matters of
public interest to get affected
The upholding
of the Right to Privacy as a fundamental right is also making information
activists ponder about its implications on the RTI Act.
"Experience
with implementation of the RTI Act has shown that there has been an unfortunate
tendency to deny information on various critical matters citing privacy
concerns. In each of these cases, there is great public interest in disclosure
of information," said Anjali Bhardwaj of Satark Nagrik Sangathan, an
organisation that uses RTI frequently.
She also
stated that RTI is often useful in extracting information on assets and
liabilities of public servants and evaluation of their professional
performance, information relating to examinations and selections and
information on educational degrees," reported TOI.
"In a
country like ours, where institutions of probity and accountability are largely
ineffective in controlling corruption, experience with the RTI law has shown
that it is critical for people to have access to relevant information in order
to empower them to fight graft," she said.
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