The Wire India: National: Friday, 24 October 2025.
The municipal authorities and the contractors are clearly not accountable to anybody. It seems they are above the law or that the rule of law does not deter them from acting in the manner they do.
I read the news today, oh
boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn,
Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to
fill the Albert Hall.
Thus sang the Beatles in ‘A Day in the Life‘.
I read the news today about hundreds and thousands of holes in the roads in Bengaluru, Karnataka and remembered this song from the 1960s. How many holes will it take to fill the Greater Bengaluru Authority?
The latest rumour was the “offer” by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw to finance filling up the holes. Shaw has denied this. But shouldn’t the municipal authority in Bengaluru hang its head in shame? Is there anything called (mis)governance? Is there anything known as accountability?
Right to information
Ordinarily, it would have been easy to get the names of the contractors who had constructed these roads, when and what they were paid. The trick lay in an application under the Right to Information Act (RTI Act). In fact, it would have even been easy to get the contracts entered into by the municipal authorities with the contractors and find out whether there was any clause for maintenance of the roads and for what period. Every resident of Bengaluru has a right to this information, more particularly (and tragically) after some scooterists toppled over and died while navigating a hole in the road. But the question is, will any resident be given the information or would it be denied on the grounds of privacy, a new buzzword of the establishment.
The farce going on in Bengaluru raises two questions of concern. The first concern is about the right to information. A recent Report Card released by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan relating to the RTI Act discloses a tragic state of affairs with vacancies in the position of Information Commissioners not only in the Central Information Commission but also in the State Information Commissions.
About Karnataka, less said the better. Instead of a full complement of 11 Information Commissioners, the Karnataka State Information Commission is functioning only with eight of them. There are more than 47,000 appeals and complaints pending at various stages. The estimated time required for disposal of a complaint/appeal is one year and nine months. So, by the time anybody obtains information about the contractor, the number of holes would probably have more than doubled.
Information versus privacy
Along with this is the additional concern of privacy. Should the name of the contractor be disclosed? Is it not in public interest to disclose the name of the contractor? Apparently it is not in public interest to reveal such information. Section 8 of the RTI Act permitted disclosure of personal information in the larger public interest. Now, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) comes in the way of getting any such information under the RTI Act. In a rather unusual legislative operation, Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act amended Section 8 of the RTI Act. The effect of the amendment is that no public authority is obliged to give information which relates to personal information. The bar is absolute. So, even if somebody were to ask for the name of the contractor of a particular road, the municipal authorities can ensure rejection of the request in a few minutes and without the person having to wait for one year and nine months for the rejection. This is otherwise known as “instant justice” a term common in relation to fake encounters and also a synonym for “bulldozer justice” – in both situations, the result is instantaneous.
While on the issue of the right to information and privacy, it is worth recalling the preamble to the RTI Act. This reads:
“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 amendment of the RTI Act through the DPDP Act effectively emasculates access to information and negates the promotion of transparency and accountability. I wonder if our legislators thought of this.
Concern of accountability
The second concern is about accountability. The municipal authorities and the contractors are clearly not accountable to anybody. It seems they are above the law or that the rule of law does not deter them from acting in the manner they do.
The law requires the government of the day to grant sanction to prosecute an errant officer. The problem of accountability in situations of violations of law is that sanction is rarely given, if at all. Once sanction is refused, only the court can set aside the refusal. It is common knowledge that our courts move at their own pace. Therefore, for a citizen to get a judgement in his or her favour and against the officer can take years through labyrinthine trial and appeal procedures. Thereafter, assuming sanction to prosecute is granted, the prosecution itself can take another several years. By that time, the litigant is exhausted and accountability loses its meaning.
Jurisprudence of accountability
It is high time we had a fresh look at the absence of accountability jurisprudence. There are several instances where high-handed actions have been taken by officers and officials with innocent persons having spent several years in jail. In hardly any case have the officers or officials paid for their illegality or unlawful activity. Perhaps the only case where substantive compensation was given to the victim of violations of the law, fabrication of evidence, was Nambi Narayanan who was awarded Rs 50 lakhs for his illegal arrest and harassment.
The Hindu recently published a review of the book The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir by Anand Teltumbde. In the review, it is mentioned that the author wanted to sue a police officer for defaming him in a press conference, but the Maharashtra government denied him sanction to do so. Teltumbde says that he couldn’t help feeling dejected by a system not accountable to the people. He asks, “On what grounds can the government refuse anyone permission to prosecute an officer who had blatantly violated the law?”
On the other hand, G.N. Saibaba was prosecuted for offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act without any sanction in accordance with law. Yet he was convicted and remained in jail for several years. Eventually the Bombay high court held that his prosecution was not in accordance with law since there was no sanction on record to prosecute him. Before he could be released from jail, the prosecution approached the Supreme Court and stalled his release. The Supreme Court required the Bombay high court to have a fresh look at his case and this time he was found not guilty on merits. The high court did not vary its conclusion that his prosecution was without appropriate sanction in accordance with law. Did Saibaba get any compensation? Was anybody held accountable for unlawfully prosecuting him?
One would expect the government of the day to suo motu identify the errant contractors and pin them down for the holes in the roads in Bengaluru and hold them accountable. But this appears to be a pipe dream.
(Madan B. Lokur is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India.)
The municipal authorities and the contractors are clearly not accountable to anybody. It seems they are above the law or that the rule of law does not deter them from acting in the manner they do.
Four thousand holes in Blackburn,
Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to
fill the Albert Hall.
Thus sang the Beatles in ‘A Day in the Life‘.
I read the news today about hundreds and thousands of holes in the roads in Bengaluru, Karnataka and remembered this song from the 1960s. How many holes will it take to fill the Greater Bengaluru Authority?
The latest rumour was the “offer” by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw to finance filling up the holes. Shaw has denied this. But shouldn’t the municipal authority in Bengaluru hang its head in shame? Is there anything called (mis)governance? Is there anything known as accountability?
Right to information
Ordinarily, it would have been easy to get the names of the contractors who had constructed these roads, when and what they were paid. The trick lay in an application under the Right to Information Act (RTI Act). In fact, it would have even been easy to get the contracts entered into by the municipal authorities with the contractors and find out whether there was any clause for maintenance of the roads and for what period. Every resident of Bengaluru has a right to this information, more particularly (and tragically) after some scooterists toppled over and died while navigating a hole in the road. But the question is, will any resident be given the information or would it be denied on the grounds of privacy, a new buzzword of the establishment.
The farce going on in Bengaluru raises two questions of concern. The first concern is about the right to information. A recent Report Card released by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan relating to the RTI Act discloses a tragic state of affairs with vacancies in the position of Information Commissioners not only in the Central Information Commission but also in the State Information Commissions.
About Karnataka, less said the better. Instead of a full complement of 11 Information Commissioners, the Karnataka State Information Commission is functioning only with eight of them. There are more than 47,000 appeals and complaints pending at various stages. The estimated time required for disposal of a complaint/appeal is one year and nine months. So, by the time anybody obtains information about the contractor, the number of holes would probably have more than doubled.
Information versus privacy
Along with this is the additional concern of privacy. Should the name of the contractor be disclosed? Is it not in public interest to disclose the name of the contractor? Apparently it is not in public interest to reveal such information. Section 8 of the RTI Act permitted disclosure of personal information in the larger public interest. Now, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) comes in the way of getting any such information under the RTI Act. In a rather unusual legislative operation, Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act amended Section 8 of the RTI Act. The effect of the amendment is that no public authority is obliged to give information which relates to personal information. The bar is absolute. So, even if somebody were to ask for the name of the contractor of a particular road, the municipal authorities can ensure rejection of the request in a few minutes and without the person having to wait for one year and nine months for the rejection. This is otherwise known as “instant justice” a term common in relation to fake encounters and also a synonym for “bulldozer justice” – in both situations, the result is instantaneous.
While on the issue of the right to information and privacy, it is worth recalling the preamble to the RTI Act. This reads:
“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 amendment of the RTI Act through the DPDP Act effectively emasculates access to information and negates the promotion of transparency and accountability. I wonder if our legislators thought of this.
Concern of accountability
The second concern is about accountability. The municipal authorities and the contractors are clearly not accountable to anybody. It seems they are above the law or that the rule of law does not deter them from acting in the manner they do.
The law requires the government of the day to grant sanction to prosecute an errant officer. The problem of accountability in situations of violations of law is that sanction is rarely given, if at all. Once sanction is refused, only the court can set aside the refusal. It is common knowledge that our courts move at their own pace. Therefore, for a citizen to get a judgement in his or her favour and against the officer can take years through labyrinthine trial and appeal procedures. Thereafter, assuming sanction to prosecute is granted, the prosecution itself can take another several years. By that time, the litigant is exhausted and accountability loses its meaning.
Jurisprudence of accountability
It is high time we had a fresh look at the absence of accountability jurisprudence. There are several instances where high-handed actions have been taken by officers and officials with innocent persons having spent several years in jail. In hardly any case have the officers or officials paid for their illegality or unlawful activity. Perhaps the only case where substantive compensation was given to the victim of violations of the law, fabrication of evidence, was Nambi Narayanan who was awarded Rs 50 lakhs for his illegal arrest and harassment.
The Hindu recently published a review of the book The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir by Anand Teltumbde. In the review, it is mentioned that the author wanted to sue a police officer for defaming him in a press conference, but the Maharashtra government denied him sanction to do so. Teltumbde says that he couldn’t help feeling dejected by a system not accountable to the people. He asks, “On what grounds can the government refuse anyone permission to prosecute an officer who had blatantly violated the law?”
On the other hand, G.N. Saibaba was prosecuted for offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act without any sanction in accordance with law. Yet he was convicted and remained in jail for several years. Eventually the Bombay high court held that his prosecution was not in accordance with law since there was no sanction on record to prosecute him. Before he could be released from jail, the prosecution approached the Supreme Court and stalled his release. The Supreme Court required the Bombay high court to have a fresh look at his case and this time he was found not guilty on merits. The high court did not vary its conclusion that his prosecution was without appropriate sanction in accordance with law. Did Saibaba get any compensation? Was anybody held accountable for unlawfully prosecuting him?
One would expect the government of the day to suo motu identify the errant contractors and pin them down for the holes in the roads in Bengaluru and hold them accountable. But this appears to be a pipe dream.
(Madan B. Lokur is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India.)
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