The Hindu: New Delhi: Thursday, July 26, 2018.
The RTI Act
Amendment Bill must be junked
The Right to
Information (RTI) Act, 2005, has empowered millions of Indians to question
governments and hold public functionaries accountable. Of the nearly six
million RTI applications filed every year in the country, a large proportion
are by the poorest and the most marginalised who seek information about their
basic rights and entitlements, like rations, pensions and health facilities.
The use of the law has not been limited to accessing information about delivery
of basic services, however. The RTI Act has been used extensively by citizens
to question the highest offices in the country from the educational
qualifications of the Prime Minister and assets of public servants to human
rights violations and false claims made by government functionaries and seek
answers from them.
It is not
surprising, therefore, that the RTI law has frequently faced a backlash from
powerful vested interests. The latest attack on the legislation is the proposal
of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government to amend it.
Why amend it?
In complete
contravention of the pre-legislative consultation policy, the government has
drafted a bill to amend the RTI Act. The proposed amendment bill, which was
brought in surreptitiously, seeks to destroy the independence of Information
Commissions the final adjudicators under the law.
The RTI Act
fixes the tenure of information commissioners at five years, subject to the
retirement age of 65 years. Further, Sections 13 and 15 of the law state that
the salaries, allowances and other terms of service of the Chief of the Central
Information Commission shall be the same as that of the Chief Election
Commissioner. Those of the Central Information Commissioners and State Chief
Commissioners will be on par with Election Commissioners. The Chief and other
Election Commissioners are paid a salary equal to the salary of a judge of the
Supreme Court, which is decided by Parliament.
The
amendments seek to empower the Central government to decide the tenure,
salaries, allowances and other terms of service of all Information
Commissioners in the country. The rationale provided for undertaking this step
is that treating Information Commissioners on par with functionaries of the
Election Commission is incorrect, as the latter is a constitutional body while
Information Commissions are statutory bodies.
This
contention is inherently flawed. The principle of statutorily securing tenure,
and protecting the terms of service by equating it to functionaries of
constitutional bodies, is routinely adopted to ensure independent functioning
of statutory oversight institutions like the Central Vigilance Commission and
the Lokpal. The fixed tenure and high status conferred on Commissioners under
the RTI Act is to empower them to carry out their functions autonomously,
without fear or favour, and direct even the highest offices to comply with the
provisions of the law.
Empowering
the Central government to decide the tenure and salaries of Information
Commissioners is a clear attempt to undermine their independence and to
effectively make Commissions function like regular government departments.
The BJP came
to power on the plank of anti-corruption. The last four years, however, have
witnessed repeated attempts to undermine the RTI Act.
Many
vacancies
The selection
committee for the appointment of Central Information Commissioners is headed by
the Prime Minster. Since May 2014, not a single Commissioner of the Central
Information Commission has been appointed without citizens having to approach
courts. It was without a chief for 10 months. The RTI Amendment Bill comes at a
time when the Supreme Court has issued notice to the government for failing to
fill vacancies in the Commission. Out of a total sanctioned strength of 11
Commissioners, there are currently four vacancies and four more are due to
arise in 2018, including that of the chief. Failure to make timely appointments
is leading to huge backlogs of appeals and complaints resulting in inordinate
delays in the Commission, which render the law meaningless for citizens.
The latest
move to furtively subvert the RTI Act exposes the real intent of the BJP
government to not allow public scrutiny of its actions. In the face of
overwhelming public and political opposition to the bill, the government has
deferred its introduction in Parliament for the moment. But whether the will of
the people prevails and the RTI law, which safeguards peoples’ fundamental
right to information, is immunised this time from legislative challenge remains
to be seen.
(Anjali
Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri are RTI activists associated with the National
Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information and Satark Nagrik Sanghatan)
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