Incisive interventions that blunt the RTI’s edge (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level : RTI
Mains level : Challenges faced by amendment of RTI

Context

• When we describe India as a democracy what do we really mean?
• Are we referring merely to a system of popular sovereignty founded in universal adult franchise?
• Or are we suggesting something more — perhaps an assurance, grounded in the Constitution, of a set of rights, of the rights, among others, to a freedom of expression, life and personal liberty, and equal opportunity and status?

Constitutional framework

• It is to this end that India’s Constitution provides a framework for governance by pledging to people a set of inviolable guarantees.
• But realising the full value of those guarantees at times requires a parley with the state.
• It was one such long battle, fought over nearly two decades, driven by the unstinting efforts of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, that resulted in the enactment in 2005 of the Right to Information Act (RTI Act).
• By any account, the law proved transformative to India’s democracy; it revolutionised the citizen’s ability to engage with the state, arming people with a mechanism to ferret out some of the truth from the government’s otherwise secretive operations.

Deep-reaching amendments

• Today, though, the kernel of the RTI Act is under threat. New amendments have been passed without subjecting the draft law to scrutiny by a parliamentary committee.
• A feature common to every law enacted by Parliament in its present session, this portends the reduction of governance to a form of democracy by crude acclamation.
• The changes made include an alteration to the term in office of the information commissioners (ICs) and to the manner of determination of their salaries.
• In place of the existing five-year term accorded to the Central Information Commissioner (CIC) and the various ICs the law grants to the Union government the power to notify their terms through executive regulations.
• The amendment deletes the RTI Act’s mandate that the salary paid to the CIC and the ICs ought to be equivalent to that paid respectively to the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioners (ECs). Now, the salary, allowances, and terms and conditions of service of the CIC and the ICs will be determined by executive guidelines.

Ferreting out the truth

• This freedom to secure information that the law provides has, in many ways, redesigned the structure of India’s democratic governance. It has helped open the government up to greater scrutiny.
• It is when a plea for information goes unheeded that the CIC and the ICs play an especially vital role.
• Should the initial request for information made to a public information officer, designated by each public authority, fail, the petitioner is entitled to lodge an appeal to an authority within the department concerned.
• Should that entreaty fail too and it often does since this is a virtually illusory remedy a further appeal can be made to the office of the CIC or the State Information Commission.

Granted an acceptable level of independence

• Until now, the RTI Act granted an acceptable level of independence to ICs.
• By placing their terms of service on a par with those of the ECs the law insulated the ICs from political influence.
• This protection was not dissimilar to the autonomy accorded to members of the higher judiciary.
• The basic idea remained the same: security in office is imperative if members must intervene without fear or favour to ensure that the law’s mandate is met.
• It could well be argued that the RTI Act, in its original form, was far from flawless, especially in that it did not do enough to open up public authorities to complete scrutiny.
• But the present amendments, far from strengthening the existing regime, subvert the independence of the information commission.
• The delegation of the power to fix the tenure and the salaries of the CIC and the ICs to the political executive places the information commission’s autonomy in a state of peril.

Way forward

• With the withering of that independence, the right to freedom of information also begins to lose its thrust.
• Therefore, the new amendments represent a classic piece of totalitarian legerdemain. Democracy, to borrow the American philosopher Cornel West’s conception, demands a “leap of faith”.
• If the new amendments are allowed to stand, making that leap becomes all the more implausible.

  Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

  General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) With reference to ‘Tribal Advisory Council’, in a State, which of the following statements is/are correct?
1. It consists of a maximum of 20 members out of which 3/4th are Scheduled Tribe MLAs of the State concerned.
2. It advises the President on matters pertaining to welfare and advancement of Scheduled Tribes in the State concerned.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
A. 1 only
B. 2 only
C. Both
D. None

Answer: A
Mains Questions:
Q.1) With the kernel of the Information Act under threat, the independence of the information commission is in peril. Critically examine the statement.