Is RTI Citizen Friendly or Regressive as OSA?

This refers to the column On the Right to Know in the NIE of 26 May 2008.

The RTI Act, 2005 is no doubt the best legislation post 15 Aug 1947. It is also the only legislation that recognises the fundamental principle of a working democracy- the empowering of people through informed decision making. No doubt the Act is not perfect and these have been taken up with the concerned authorities- right up to the President of India- on many occasions. They are yet to be acted upon.

Unfortunately, the government after enacting a fairly powerful, simple, straightforward law entrusted its implementation to people who should have been presumed vested interests in subverting it. Events of the last 32 months of operation of this Act has proved the fears of activists in this field to be true.

To begin with, the bureaucrats who have been appointed as Chief Information Commissioners at the Centre and in most of the states have more than amply demonstrated their lack of commitment in implementing the Act by not using the deterrent clauses of the Act to impose punishments on the delinquent public authorities. Worse, they have gone overboard to substantially subvert the provisions of the Act by themselves holding that information sought in the form of questions need not be provided! The judiciary has also played spoil sport by increasing the cost of application exorbitantly (the Delhi High Court had made it Rs 500/- against Rs 10/- by the Centre and most of the states!) and also introducing fee for the first appeal when the first appeal has itself been provided as an opportunity for a senior official of the public authority to correct any mistakes committed by its public information officer who is generally a lower level official. The incompetence of the information commissioners have compounded the problem in the case of the courts wherein the Central Information Commission had itself passed an order that judicial proceedings will be out of purview of the RTI Act. (Please see the report 'Information Act will not apply to judicial proceedings: Commission' in the NIE of 27 Sep 2007.)

Right from the beginning all proceedings in our courts are supposed to be in 'open courts', except in the case of certain sensitive cases which are held 'in camera'. A provision to protect such 'in camera' proceedings from inquisitive eyes is being misinterpreted to keep the judiciary itself from the purview of the first pro-democracy Act. And now the CJI goes overboard and declares that his office itself is beyond the purview of the Act! Instead of the Central Information Commission setting up a full bench to decide if the CJI's stand is legal or not, the real need is for the law makers to proceed with impeachment of the CJI for proven incompetence! Sec 2(h) of the RTI Act which defines a public authority leaves no room for doubt that the office of the CJI is a public authority and since it does not figure in the list of public authorities specified in the second schedule of the Act who are kept out of its purview there is no need for wrecking one's brain too much to decide if the CJI is true or not. Yes, one may tickle one's brain to decide if it is purely a matter of incompetence of the CJI or a calculated move to keep his office out of public scrutiny because his office has things which needs to be hidden from public scrutiny!

Maj PM Ravindran (Retd)
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Income Tax investigation out of Right to Information