- Venkatesh Nayak and Dr. Rakesh Ranjan
The grapevine hangs heavy with rumours of bureaucrats working overtime to amend the Right to Information Act (RTI Act). This is along expected lines. During its infancy the RTI Act has been instrumental in putting a former Minister behind bars and the initiation of departmental action against several unscrupulous and corrupt officers in many parts of the country. Given this impact of a toddler what would happen when the Act comes of age? The empire seeks to strike back by cutting down RTI to a ‘manageable’ size. The axe is being honed at the very forge where this citizen empowering tool was crafted.
How do we know this? First we must carefully read the Honb’le President’s address delivered at the joint session of parliament. While promising that her government would come up with a public data policy to place all non-strategic information in the public domain, the President clearly stated that the RTI Act ‘will be amended’. All past promises to leave the Act intact appear to have gone with the wind. Dr. E M S Natchiappan the Chair of the parliamentary committee examining the implementation of the Act had publicly said that his committee would not recommend any amendment. That committee report has not seen the light of the day yet. If this position held true, the Hon’ble President would not have mentioned the word ‘amend’ in the same sentence as the RTI Act. There is a clear and present danger to the integrity of the RTI Act.
So where is the axe going to strike? There is no official word yet but a government document placed in the public domain provides vital clues. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) made several recommendations for strengthening the RTI Act- described as the ‘master key to good governance’. The Government of India (GOI) has made up its mind on what to accept.
The first strike is likely to insulate official file notings from public scrutiny. File notings show up the manner in which a decision is reached. It contains opinion and advice tendered by officers. The Manual of Office Procedure requires that the ‘notes’ portion of every file be kept confidential. The ARC said delete these instructions. GOI rejected this advice.
In 2006 the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) burnt its fingers while trying to restrict access to file notings only on socio-economic and developmental matters, minus the names of officers who authored them. The proposal was temporarily shelved thanks to vehement opposition from civil society, the media and MPs of the Left Front. Despite all this GOI has sought 11 extensions from the Rajya Sabha Assurances Committee for reaching a final decision on file notings. At the same time despite several decisions of the Central Information Commission, and a string of instructions and protests the DoPT stubbornly refused to remove information on its website that wrongly states that file notings do not come within the ambit of the Act when clearly they do. The battle lines are drawn. The threat to people’s right to know is not going away soon or easily.
The government has accepted the ARC’s recommendation to enable a public information officer to reject an information request if it is frivolous, vexatious or seeks voluminous quantities of information. If this amendment goes through, the already reluctant public authorities will have a ready excuse to hide information that may reveal corruption and poor-decision making. Appeals and complaints on this account will increase the existing burden on Information Commissions.
Another retrograde recommendation of the ARC was to add the three defence forces to the list of excluded organisations. While this recommendation has not been accepted, a door has been left open to the Ministry of Defence to bring a comprehensive proposal on the subject. GOI’s response reads less like a rejection and more like an invitation to the armed forces to seek exclusion from the RTI Act. A blanket exclusion on bodies or classes of information is anathema to the practice of open, responsible and accountable government. Yet efforts are on to change the locks on some important doors rendering the ‘master key’ useless.
Government has rejected several other more progressive recommendations without much justification. For example, it has refused to alter the government’s domination of the selection committee that recommends candidates to be appointed to Information Commissions. Nor is it in favour of reserving 50% of the seats in the Commissions for non-bureaucrats. The Official Secrets Act and the oath of secrecy will stay on like family heirlooms inherited from the British Raj. Voluntary disclosure documents prepared under section 4 of the Act will not be printed as it is perceived to be an expensive exercise. Instead they will be uploaded on the Internet for the benefit of the less than 6% web-savvy citizenry. No separate funds allocation will be made for improving records management. No officer will be appointed at the district and sub-district level to monitor the implementation of the Act as that could lead to inter-departmental conflict. In short bureaucrats have accepted only those recommendations that serve their interests.
The writing on the wall cannot be any clearer. Sooner or later attempts will be made to roll back several positive features of the Act. Unless every citizen who has made use of the RTI Act stands up to its defence, few may rush to its rescue. The time has come for all of us to repay the debt that we owe to RTI- protect it, nourish it and defend it because we have benefitted from this fundamental right.
[Venkatesh Nayak is Programme Coordinator and Dr. Rakesh Ranjan is external Collaborator, Access to Information Programme, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi]
