News Click: New Delhi: Wednesday, August 01, 2018.
The contents
of the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2018 is finally available to the
public. Since May, outrage that the Bill was hidden from public view, in
violation of the Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy, 2014, had been building
up. On July 18, a Jan March and a rally against the secrecy was conducted in
Delhi. The present Bill seeks to change the rules regarding the tenure and
salaries of the Information Commissioners and Chief Information Commissioners,
both at the Union and state level. Upon scrutiny, however, these changes are
far from innocuous.
Under
sections 13 and 16 of the existing Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act),
the tenure of the Information Commissioners as well as the Chief Information
Commissioners both Central and State was set at five years from the date of
appointment or until attaining the age of 65. The present Bill wants to do away
with this and place the decision of tenure in the hands of the central
government. This amendment appears to be nothing more than a backdoor attempt
at managing the Information Commissions through rewarding compliant
commissioners and side-lining those who do not.
Regarding the
salaries, under the same sections of the existing RTI Act, the salary of a
Central Information Commissioner and a State Chief Information Commissioner is
equal to that of an Election Commissioner and paid out of the Consolidated Fund
of India. Whereas, for a State Information Commissioner, it is equal to that of
a Chief Secretary to the State Government. The Bill would make the central
government the final authority for determining the salaries of Commissioners –
both in the states as well as at the centre. This proposed amendment appears to
run roughshod over Indian federalism, wherein the states have absolute control
over their own respective Consolidated Funds. The only time the Union
Government has any control is when the President's Rule is in effect. This appears
as another veiled attempt at creating a situation where the Union Government
can reward and punish at its whims. Thus, it appears that the two changes
together represent a carrot and a stick.
Additional
amendments to section 27 to provide the Union Government with Rule-making
powers regarding tenure and allowances have also been included in the Bill.
The Statement
of Objects and Reasons in the Bill rationalise the amendments on the basis that
the Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional authority, whereas
the Information Commissions are statutory authorities. While the Chief Election
Commissioner and the Election Commissioners are entitled to salaries and
allowances equal to that of a Judge of the Supreme Court, due to the difference
in the nature of the two authorities, the Information Commissioners' status and
service conditions need to be 'rationalised' accordingly.
That the
entire RTI machinery is in a disarray is a known fact. A petition filed by
Anjali Bhardwaj, Amrita Johri and Commodore (Retd.) Lokesh Batra against the
Union Government as well as several state governments made it clear that
currently, the Information Commissions are faced with rising vacancies.
According to the petition, the Central Information Commission has four
vacancies and more than 23,500 appeals are pending before it. The State
Information Commission of Andhra Pradesh has not been functioning from May 2017
till at least the time the petition was filed. The Gujarat State Information
Commission has been functioning without a Chief Information Commissioner since
January 2018 till the petition was filed. The other states mentioned in the
petition were Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Odisha, Telangana and
West Bengal. The issues in all the states were equally grim.
The
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has released a critique of the Bill
titled; The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2018: A Critical Review of
the Amendment Proposals and the Underlying Reasoning. The critique noted the
absence of any public debate and the secrecy that surrounded the Bill. Another
point raised in the critique was that through the Finance Act, 2017 the
government had raised the salaries of the Chairpersons of 19 Tribunals to the
level of a Supreme Court Judge, while the other members of these Tribunals had
their salaries hiked to the level of a High Court Judge Rs. 2,50,000 and Rs.
2,25,000 respectively. All of the Tribunals that saw a hike in their members'
salaries are statutory authorities, just like the Information Commissions. This
would place the amendment in the present Bill regarding salaries in conflict
with Article 14 the right to equality.
It is clear
that the amendments will not only fall foul of Article 14, but the federal
nature of the Indian Constitution as well. The Bill was possibly formulated
with a view to bring the RTI machinery under government control. Such a
position is untenable and goes against the very preamble of the RTI Act which
states that it is: “An Act to provide for setting out the practical regime of
right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the
control of public authorities, in order to promote transparency and
accountability in the working of every public authority, the constitution of a
Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions and for
matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.” The CHRI has recommended
that “it is advisable that the Amendment Bill be dropped without introduction
in Parliament”. Doing so would definitely be in the best interests of protecting
transparency.
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