20 years of RTI Act: A steep decline

It was the overwhelming support to the Right to Information movement  from villagers, media and the civil society, which drew the attention of the Central government and led to the historic enactment of the RTI Act on the momentous day of October 5, 2005. But the crusaders for transparency and accountability in the rural development works of Rajasthan in the nineties, could have never imagined that 20 years later, their heroic efforts would almost come to a nought. 

The latest report on the status of information commissions is extremely depressing for the RTI activists, the civil society, as also for the common man seeking information from the government. Seven state information commissions (SIC) were found to be non-operational and three commissions were defunct. Even the Central Information Commission (CIC) was barely functional with only three commissioners, while the full quota is of eleven.

Over 400,000 appeals and complaints awaited hearing across the country, while vacancies existed across the State Commissions. Maharashtra alone accounted for over 100,000 pending cases, while Karnataka and Tamil Nadu followed with figures of 50,000 and 41,000, respectively. Poor functioning of the Commissions strikes at the very foundation of the RTI Act.

In many states, citizens have to wait for years for their appeals to be heard. The Chattisgarh SIC would take five years and two months to dispose of a matter and in Bihar four and half years — an alarming situation with respect to the time taken for hearing of appeals by the SICs. Several Commissions did not hold regular hearings, and some even refused to upload annual reports, undermining transparency. 

The Report Card of Information Commissions 2023-24 compiled by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan is a damming indictment of the functioning of RTI Act in the country. The sheer negligence in administering the RTI regime comes from the very top in the government.

Persisting vacancies in the commissions and government stonewalling the demands by the RTI activists and civil society to fill them is a clear signal that the RTI regime is out in the cold. Time and again it is the Supreme Court which has to be approached for seeking directions to Government to fill up vacancies.

While vacancies affect work severely, the administering of the Act by the commissions leaves much to be desired. The common man expects the commissions to act in favour of people’s right to know when the ministries are simply bludgeoning queries on important issues.

Sample these! The Union Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) flatly denied details of correspondence with the US on importing oil from Russia. RTI Querist Venkatesh Nayak of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative sought documents relating to communication received from the former US President Joe Biden administration, encouraging India to buy oil from Russia to stabilise world market prices. This was a claim made by the foreign minister S Jaishankar, in response to additional 25 per cent tariffs imposed on India’s exports by US President Donald Trump, for India buying the Russian oil.

MEA refused to reveal documents or details. It is surprising how the matter can be exempted from replying as it is not covered in any one of the reasons cited in section 8 of the RTI Act which allows exemption. If a claim has been made by the government, how does it hurt to show the correspondence to the people? In fact it helps to make it public.

Most government institutions display opacity like the MEA. Even power centres like the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) eyed by every politician for a stake in the pie, manages to remain outside the purview of the RTI Act, when every sports federation receiving funds to the tune of 10 lakhs from the government is designated a public authority. Of course BCCI does not need government’s money because it is the richest cricket association in the world. ICC is helmed by the son of India’s Home Minister and the mouth watering perks and powers made many a politician nervous with the recently concluded BCCI President’s election.

Perhaps BCCI has taken maximum benefits from the government to set up its huge empire across the country and the team selected by it also plays under India’s banner. So, while all the riches are coveted by BCCI, when it comes to discharging responsibility to the people, it shies away. It keeps in good books an army of well-paid journalists, cricketers, commentators, politicians and others for blaring its plans and propaganda.

An opaque Election Commission of India demands voter transparency — seeking documents relating to birth and place to be able to vote. But the same commission, when asked for information relating to constituencies where voters are vulnerable to intimidation, suspicious transaction reports received from banks during campaign, denies holding the information. The functioning of another statutory body, CIC, has already been explained above. 

Perhaps the success of the RTI Act in the first decade itself became its enemy. The right of the common citizen to question the powers that be, hurt some vested interests. In the UPA regime, some MPs raised the issue of nuisance caused by some “professional RTI querists”,  virtually running a relentless campaign against some government functionaries. Too many queries on inane matters overloaded the system. While this was true to a certain extent, it hadn’t acquired a dimension yet to overawe the system. Besides there were ways to tackle the issue, which were being employed by some commissioners already very successfully. 

More importantly, were the RTI queries filed, questioning why some of the institutions seeking maximum advantage from the government not classified as public authorities. This was actually more worrying to the vested interests. Such queries put institutions like the BCCI, Cooperatives societies, Delhi Gymkhana, India International Centre etc under the scanner. A landmark CIC judgement in 2013 declared political parties as public authorities. All hell broke loose; the parities resolved not to honour the decision and didn’t even go to the court against the order. The matter lies frozen till Supreme Court takes the decision.

This landmark decision is the cause for disenchantment of all political parties against the RTI Act. Expectedly, came the amendment in 2019, reducing the status of Central Information commissioners to that of Secretary, Government of India. The fixed tenure of five years was also reduced to three. In a country, where the importance of a post is judged by the basic pay, the amendment drastically brought down all the commissioners from a pedestal.

This led to a noticeable downturn in the outcomes, since the signal to the government departments answering the commissioners, was clear. As it is, the higher echelons of  government departments were hardly involved in answering RTI queries till CIC or SICs sought answers on critical issues. The status and tenure of commissioners were deliberated upon at great length while the RTI Bill was being prepared and only then was decision taken to accord them status of the central election commissioners. 

Another grave damage to the system was inflicted by appointing Chief Information Commissioners separately, not following the principle of seniority. Appointing chiefs directly was a clear display of intention   on the part of the Government to control the commissions by placing a favoured retired bureaucrat at the top. In addition, some Commissioners still behave as government servants routinely denying information and thus always upholding the interest of the government departments.

The final blow to the RTI Act has been delivered by the recently promulgated Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act. Section 44 of the DPDP Act bars any private information from being disseminated under the RTI Act under section 8 I(j), even if serves wider public interest. This amendment of RTI Act will now be used to deny legitimate questions of officer’s assets, recruitment irregularities, fake caste or birth certificates, among others. Transparency watchdogs have warned that the new privacy law could become a backdoor tool to restrict access to financial disclosures, government schemes, service records and conflict of interest details. 

A rising economic power like India should seriously consider, as it seeks a place in the UN Security Council, whether it can afford curbing of people’s basic right to knowledge or free access to information in the largest democracy of the world.

Yashovardhan Jha Azad is a former IPS officer has served as the Central Information Commissioner, Secretary Security, Government of India and Special Director Intelligence Bureau. Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.