The Hans India: Hyderabad: Thursday, August 02, 2018.
The coming
into being of independent India was a little like the birth of a baby. A baby
delivered by a Caesarian operation looks cute but is extremely fragile, and
easily prone to infection.
A child which
has undergone the pangs of birth, and is delivered in a natural manner, is, on
the other hand, much more robust and strong. Like a Caesarian baby, India
secured independence – through a non-violent ‘ahimsa’ based struggle – with no
bloodshed, which rendered it fragile and vulnerable. That is probably why, 70
years down the road, the country’s struggle for coming to terms with the
reality of democracy is continuing unabated.
One wonders
whether the Right to Information (RTI) Act is not suffering from a similar
syndrome. It is necessary to induct the concept of transparency and
accountability into the administrative culture in a gradual and calibrated
sensible manner. Any sudden or violent attempt to thrust this relatively
unfamiliar requirement on to the extant administrative extent system will only
cause undesirable consequences. One wonders whether RTI Act tried to bite off
more than it can chew or chewed off more than it can swallow and digest.
The central
government is reported to have made up its mind to amend the RTI Act during the
current session of Parliament. This news has caused considerable anxiety and
concern in the minds of human rights activists and experts concerned.
Editorials and articles have appeared in various journals and magazines
opposing the proposal.
On the face
of it, it might look a little unusual for so much fuss to be made about
seemingly simple matters such as the adjustment of the terms of service of the
Chief Information Commissioner and other Commissioners at the level and the
state level. On closer examination, however, one does get a doubt whether there
is not something more than meets the eye in the proposal – something that may
strike at the very roots of the right to information by weakening and diluting
it.
In the
context of the caution being administered by several quarters not to tinker
with the existing system, it is necessary for us to examine whether the law in
question needs to be amended at all and if so in what manner. As the adage
goes, governments never lie but seldom speak the truth. It would, of course, be
unwise to conclude that every time government hides something, some grave
danger is likely to befall.
Governments
often think, and rightly too, that the public need not be taken into confidence
about things which do not directly concern them. The information, in some
circumstances, might lead to uninformed, if not irresponsible, criticism. This
feeling can, on occasion, be overdone. It is the practice, adopted by some
state governments in the country – of concealing most of the government orders
(GO) issued by them from the public domain – that led to widespread suspicion
and distrust about their motives, and culminated in the demand for greater
transparency in their functioning.
Soon, the
right to information began to be regarded as being on par with the freedom of
expression, which is guaranteed by the Constitution of India. It is as a result
of the consequent concerted people’s movement, with many activists in its
forefront, that the (RTI) Act became a reality in 2005, with extensive inputs
from citizens of diverse socio–economic milieus.
In the
relatively short period for which the dispensation has been in existence, the
mechanisms established by the RTI Act have acquitted themselves more than
adequately. The provisions of the Act which provide for the status and rank of
a Judge of the Supreme Court to the Chief Commissioner and independence to his
staff at the national and state levels, together with the important concomitant
of corresponding emoluments and perquisites, went a long way in ensuring
autonomy and independence to the institutions and their heads.
The RTI Act
brought in as a measure of empowerment of the citizens of a country, otherwise
saddled with the colonial legacy of secretive government. People need to know
things to be able to hold accountable those who represent them for the delivery
of basic rights and entitlements.
The right to
information is also a means of empowering the public and creating in their mind
a demand for performance from their representatives.
In other
words, taken together with easy methods of access to information, it is a
measure for securing compliance and transparency. Some efforts made, by
governments in the past, to dilute the scope and coverage of the provisions of
the act, failed to materialise. The present move by the government aims at
eroding the independence of the Commissions at the national and the state
levels, and seeks control over tenure, salary and allowances of the
Commissioners. It is feared that government can arm-twist those who are not
falling in line.
The proposed
change would eliminate the extant parity between the Election Commissioners and
the Information Commissioners and, therefore, equivalence with Judges of the
Supreme Court. The contention that the Election Commission and Information
Commission are not the same as the former one is constitutional body holds
little water, as there are enough precedents such as the CVC Act and the Lokpal
Act for providing such equivalence through acts of Parliament.
Now, however,
the proposed amendment which, at least on the face of it, appears likely to
weaken the institutions themselves is naturally causing a considerable amount
of concern. Another disturbing issue is the argument, being put forth by the
Government of India, that the right to information is merely a statutory right
and not a constitutional one. This is because the central government had
earlier argued, while retaining the right to demand the production of records
by the states, that the responsibility of safeguarding the right information
was its alone, as it was a constitutional right.
If the law
must be amended at all, it would be better to do it in matters relating to
securing full compliance by government departments and related agencies, and to
the extension of its scope to more institutions. In view of the judgement of
the Supreme Court that the right to information is integral to right to free
expression under Article 19(1)(A) of the Constitution of India, weakening it
would negate that the guarantee.
At this
juncture, it is time to recollect some home truths. Secrecy and a democratic
form of government are intrinsically incompatible. Given the low level of
literacy in our country, as also the limited knowledge and understanding of the
functioning of the administrative systems, it must be conceded that, at the
moment, the right to information is being used only by a niche section, and in
some cases, with ulterior motives.
Every year,
millions of queries are being asked and not all of them could be useful. Surely
some of it is being abused, if not misused. Idle queries tend to waste public
money and time, and half-baked information might be misused to create panic and
confusion among public.
The present
bill has been drafted in complete contravention of all principles of
pre-legislative consultation or involving public and government employees. Let
there be a detailed study of how the information is being used.
A random
survey might reveal how far public is being benefited by the act and to what
extent it justifies the extra workload on government machinery. It needs to be
studied whether the act is being used to create hurdles in government mechanism
and dissuade its workforce to take decisions.
So, it would
undoubtedly have been much more proper and appropriate if the present proposal
had been preceded by an exercise of consultation with all the stakeholders, especially
the state governments and its workforce and strengthened by conclusions drawn
from a comprehensive review of the functioning of the national and state level
commissions thus far.
In the
ultimate analysis, it cannot be gainsaid that the need for transparency has to
be balanced with the pitfalls that may be attendant with the sharing of
information by the governments with the public. (The writer is former Chief
Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh)
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