The RTI Act-Present Status

The RTI Act has caught the imagination of people and the way it has spread is
being appreciated and admired around the world. A great change has come in
India in the last decade in the power equation between the sovereign citizens of
the country and those in power. This change is just beginning and if we can
sustain and strengthen it, our defective elective democracy could metamorphose
into a truly participatory democracy within the next one or two decades. We have
just begun this journey towards a meaningful Swaraj. I believe media-visual, print
and social,- and RTI have all been a fortunate heady mix. They have the potential
of actualizing the promise of democracy. However there are also signs of
regressive forces which could stymie these promises.
I will refer to the two biggest dangers to RTI:
1.

Most established Institutions are unhappy with RTI. When the power
equation changes between those with power and the ordinary citizen,
resistance is to be expected. Everyone in power generally feels
transparency is good for others, whereas they should be left to work
effectively. It is implied that transparency is a hindrance to good
governance.
The former Prime Minister,- harried by the uncovering of various scams
by RTI,-said at the Central Information Commissions convention in
October 2012: There are concerns about frivolous and vexatious use
of the Act in demanding information the disclosure of which cannot
possibly serve any public purpose. The present Prime Minister has
taken a preemptive action by not appointing a Chief Information
Commissioner at all to render it dysfunctional. The bureaucracy is also
hardening its stand and in most cases has realized that the
Commissioners are not really committed to transparency. This coupled
with the long wait at the Commissions and the reluctance of the
Commissions in imposing penalties is slowly making it difficult to get
sensitive information which could aid citizens to expose structural
shortcomings or corruption. A former Chief Justice of India said in April
2012, The RTI Act is a good law but there has to be a limit to it. I am
amazed at the suggestion that there should be a limit to RTI beyond
what has been laid down in the law by Parliament in terms of
exemptions. Any interpretation beyond what is written in the law will be
a violation of Citizens fundamental right to information. We have
travelled some distance away from the statement made by a seven
judge bench of the Supreme Court of India in S. P. Gupta v. President of
India & Ors. (AIR 1982 SC 149) There can be little doubt that exposure
to public gaze and scrutiny is one of the surest means of achieving a
clean and healthy administration. It has been truly said that an open
government is clean government and a powerful safeguard against
political and administrative aberration and inefficiency.

2. A greater danger comes from the selection of Information

Commissioners as a part of political patronage. Most have no
predilection for transparency or work. Their orders are often biased
against transparency and in many places a huge backlog is being built
up as a consequence of their inability to cope. Consequently a law
which seeks to ensure giving information to citizens in 30 days on pain
of penalty gets stuck for over a year at the Commissions. Most of these
Commissioners do not work to deliver results in a timebound manner
and lose all moral authority to penalize PIOs who do not work in a
timebound manner. Commissioners are slowly working less and less. In
the Central Information Commission six Commissioners had disposed
22351 cases in 2011, whereas in 2014 seven Commissioners disposed
only 16006 cases! Civil society and media are rightly critical of the
government for not appointing the balance four Commissioners, but at
the current rate of disposal eleven Commissioners will not dispose over
25000 cases a year. In 2014 CIC received 31000 cases and presently
has a pendency of over 38000 cases. It is evident that at this
languorous pace of working RTI will slowly become like the Consumer
Act,- mainly in existence for the Commissioners. Citizens must wake out
of their slumber and focus on getting commissioners who will dispose
over 6000 cases each year and give clear signals that they will not
tolerate tardiness from Public Information Officers or Commissioners.
Eternal Vigilance is the price for democracy. We have a very useful tool
to make our democracy meaningful and effective. It will work and grow
if we struggle to ensure its health. We need to put pressure on various
institutions so that they restrain from constricting our right, ensure a
transparent process of selection for Commissioners and adequate
disposal of cases at the Commissions. If we are lazy this right will also
putrefy .