The Hans India: New Delhi: Sunday, June 17, 2018.
The Centre
has confirmed it is considering an amendment to the Right to Information (RTI)
Act but has refused to provide details of the proposed bill.
An RTI reply
received by Anjali Bhardwaj this month from the Department of Personnel and
Training (DoPT) said: “The matter regarding amendment in the RTI Act, 2005 is
under consideration and has not reached finality. As per section 8(1)(i) of the
RTI Act, 2005, information requested by you cannot be supplied at this stage.”
Among the
questions which were asked in the RTI application include: the date on which
the proposal to amend the RTI Act, 2005 was prepared by the DoPT; the date on
which the DOPT forwarded the proposal to amend the RTI Act, 2005 to the cabinet
and the date on which the cabinet has taken a decision regarding the proposal
to amend the RTI Act, 2005.
It also asked
for a copy of the proposal to amend the RTI Act, 2005, prepared by the DOPT and
a copy of the decision of the cabinet regarding the proposal to amend it.
Bhardwaj said under the Pre-legislative Consultation Policy (PLCP) of 2014, the
government is supposed to put out all the legislations, policies etc that it is
planning in the public domain for one month for consultation.
“The
government is not wanting to make the amendment public at all. Unfortunately,
we are finding that any amendment or laws that they are bringing in, there is
no pre-legislative consultation on these.
“Even in the
case of the Whistleblower’s Protection Amendment Bill, they didn’t put anything
in the public. We filed an RTI application, but they didn’t give us any
information,” Bhardwaj said.
“From media
reports, we got to know that an RTI amendment was being planned and there was
an RTI Amendment bill. So, we filed this RTI to know the content of the bill.
They have denied it to us,” she added.
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