Press Note on 14th RTI anniversary
October 12, 2019, marked 14 years of
implementation of the RTI Act in India. The law has empowered millions of
people across the country to exercise their fundamental right to seek
information and hold the government accountable.
Never
has the government’s commitment to transparency been as questionable as it is
today, on the 14th anniversary of the Right to Information law-
information of critical national and public importance continues to be denied
and the Act itself was weakened through amendments..
The
convention, organized by the Central Information Commission is the first since
the RTI Amendment Act 2019 was passed by Parliament which dealt a serious blow
to the law. Despite protests across the country and opposition from several
political parties, the BJP government brought in amendments to the RTI Act.
There were no public consultations on the amendments and in fact even the text
of the amendment Bill was not made public before being introduced in Parliament.
The amendments empower the
central government to make rules regarding the tenure, salaries, allowances and
other terms of service of the chief and other information commissioners of the
Central Information Commission (CIC) and all state information commissions
(SICs).
It
has been more than 2 months since the amendments received the assent of the
President on August 1, 2019. However, till date the central government has not
promulgated rules. Though the DoPT MoS Jitendera Singh and Home Minister Amit
Shah spoke at the inaugural session of the CIC convention, they did not make
any reference to the recent amendments to the law nor did they give any
indication of the time-frame in which rules will be made.
In
complete denial of the dismal reality of the implementation of the RTI law Home
Minister, Amit Shah claimed that this government is committed to transparency.
The
abrogation of articles 370 and 35A has meant that the J&K RTI Act stands
repealed. The transparency law in the state was repealed without any transparency
in the process itself! There is no clarity about the status of the appeals and
complaints pending before the J&K State Information Commission as the
commission was set up under the J&K RTI Act. The state Act also had some
progressive provisions not contained in the Central RTI Act- such as time bound
disposal of second appeals.
The track record of the government on openness has been
questionable. For instance, the government resisted disclosure of records and
deliberations regarding demonetisation. Electoral Bonds were introduced as a mode of anonymous
funding of political parties through an amendment to the Finance Bill.
Preposterous claims were made by the government that this was being done to
bring in greater ‘transparency’. BJP was the biggest beneficiary of the
electoral bond scheme launched by the government in 2017-18, bagging 94.5% of
the bonds worth a little over Rs 210 crore masking the unholy nexus between
corporates and the ruling party. The government has also kept under wraps information
about bank frauds and NPAs. It also tried to suppress the release of the
unemployment data.
‘Report Card of Information
Commission 2018-19’ brought out by
Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) and CES on the functioning of information
commissions across the country has found that despite the directions of the
Supreme Court in judgment in February 2019 to appoint information Commissioners
to the Central and State Information Commissions, many appointments to the
information commissions have not yet been made. In fact currently four posts of
information commissioners in the CIC are vacant.
Furthermore, scores of RTI users have been
attacked and more than 84 killed in their quest for information and
accountability. This month itself an RTI activist in Rajasthan was allegedly
killed in police custody. Even as the attacks continue unabated, the government
has failed to operationalize the Whistle Blowers Protection Act which was
passed in 2014.
To
mark the anniversary of the RTI law, NCPRI members in many states held events
resolving to protect RTI, increase it's usage and overcome the attempt to
weaken one of the most radical freedom on information legislations in the
world. After the amendments were passed
in the Parliament, the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to
Information launched a year long
"Use RTI, Demand Accountability" campaign on August 1st 2019.
To demand accountability from the government, RTI users and citizen
campaigns have been filing and will continue to file RTIs on pressing issues of
public interest. Some of the RTIs already filed sought information on issues
such as district mineral funds, lynching cases, Aadhaar and voter ID linkage,
electoral bonds, the National Food Security Act amongst many others.
By NCPRI , New Delhi
On 13.10.19
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