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| Why opposition is sore over amendments to RTI Act | | Amendments to RTI Act, 2005 | | Virendra Wangnoo
Amid walkout and slogans, the RTI Amendment Bill,2019 was passed in both houses of parliament on 25th July. The opposition was adamant, as a routine , to send the bill to select Committee which was totally rejected by the Government. The proposal was defeated by 75 to 117 votes in Rajya Sabha and amid stiff opposition , the bill was passed. The passage was a big victory for the Govt. due to its floor management.
Amid allegations of murder of democracy, death of Right to Information and similar allegations from opposition, the bill will be a law . But importantly, it underlined need for a greater maturity on the part of Congress party to do legislative business . The Govt. also needs to show even greater seriousness to accommodate opposition views in law making. The RTI Act, 2005 is an important legislation for the Country although it needs to be strengthened further through a consultative mechanism and also to minimise its misuse for purposes other than transparency and accountability.
Although the Congress is taking credit for enacting the Act in 2005, but it was a Supreme Court judgement of 1986 in famous case titled "Kulwal v/s Jaipur Municipal Corpotation" in which SC held that freedom of speech and expression provided under Article 19 of the Constitution clearly implies right to information as without information the freedom of speech and expression cannot be fully used by the citizen. After 19 years, finally Parliament enacted the RTI Act,2005 thereby indicating absence of a sense of urgency to equip people with this legislation and have access to information for which Congress is claiming credit.
RTI Act,2005 (Act) did not create any new bureaucracy for implementation of the Act instead each department was required to have a Public Information Officer to disseminate information to seekers within a fixed time frame. In addition, the Act mandated to create Central Information Commission at Centre and State Information Commissions at the state level to see implementation of the Act and it also mandated Information Commissioners to impose fine on any official who did not follow the mandate of the Act.
Section 2 , 4 and 8 of the Act form the core sections which deal with the dissemination of information to the information seekers. Section 2 lays down information accessible under the Act, Section 4 mandates suo moto disclosure and Section 8 provides for information exempt from disclosure under Official Secrets Act,1923. Even information under Official Secrets act has to be disclosed if larger public interest is served. However, in the current amendments the Government has not amended these core sections.
The Act has already been amended twice in 2013, in UPA 2, by removing political parties from the ambit of the definition of Public Authorities and there is a country wide debate raging on this amendment. Another amendment was carried out in 2017 in which a proviso has been added to close the case of an information seeker in case of his death. Activists are sore over this amendment too citing safety of information seekers. The present amendments are being made in Section 22 which replaced the present 5 years tenure to "as determined by the Government", Section 27 provides salaries other allowances & conditions of service of Central Information Commission and Section 16 which provides for salaries and other conditions of service of State Information Commission.
Opposition view and Govt. clarification
Unfortunately the opposition has failed to crystallise their demands based on logic and it has merely been using metaphors of murder of democracy and death of RTI Act. Absence of a serious & logical demand has blunted its own point and people have serious suspicion on opposition seriousness to push through points of discord. Its stance is seen mainly to be dilatory and only for brownie points by demanding to send this bill to select committee . Select Committee route is undoubtedly aimed at enriching and broadside examination of the amendments. Adhir Ranjan Choudhary of Congress protested that Govt. has not given two days mandatory time to allow opposition to study the amendments but MOS, PMO Dr Jatinder Singh while introducing the bill stated that it is quite ironical that Members are giving their observations and comments on this bill without a discussion and even going through it. He also said that let the bill get introduced now and when it is taken up for consideration to discuss points raised by M.Ps. Faizan Mustafa, VC Hyderabad based National Law University and a lawmaker opined that it is not that process is not being followed, the bills are read three times in the house and then there is a debate on a single stream followed by voting on amendments and sufficient time is given to opposition before discussion in the parliament. He further opined that sending the amendments in the bill to select committee means inviting more comprehensive discussion. In his view, since the Modi Govt. came to power, parliamentary function has increased in terms of passing bills in the parliament unlike in a coalition era when there is a blockage in passing the bills.
Responding to opposition charge that Govt. intends to take over the power to determine the salaries of Information Commissioners, Dr. Jitender Singh says that the original bill of 2005 did not have the provision to frame rules and Govt. is only making provision to frame rules and the amendment bill was only an enabling legislation for administrative purposes . He also said that CIC and ICs, as per 2005 Act are equivalent to judges of SC. However, if one intends to challenge their decision then one has to move the High Court. Does it happen anywhere in the world? He pointed out that Congress Party enacted a very clumsy law and we are trying to modify it. Jagdambika Pal, MP stated that the efforts of the Govt. are aimed at providing CIC a constitutional framework through this bill. E.T. Mohamad Basheer, MP pointed out that due to vacancies in the CIC at present, the Government is not filling the vacancies thereby crippling the RTI Act. Dr Jitendra Singh pointed out that in this respect, if you go back, there have been occasions before 2014 where even five vacancies were existing and the Commission was working. There are a slew of reasons for such vacancies. Reacting to opposition charge that the Govt. was legislating upon SICs which was against the federalism, the Minister said the RTI Act originally, which was framed in 2005, gave the Parliament and the Centre the powers to frame rules even for the States. So, the federal sanctity is same as it was in 2005.
There are numerous difficulties to make RTI an effective tool and connecting the masses directly to the Government. These mainly include lack of infra, enforcement of awards of compensation and non compliance issues thereto , poor record keeping, misuse of RTI, protection of whistle blowers and decentralisation of powers. As a tool of social justice, transparency and accountability, the Government and opposition need to sit together and try taking effective steps in removing the irritants and shortcomings to let the Act usher into achieving the objective. |
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