27-10-2020 | 10:58 AM
The Right to Information Act, 2005
Context
The year 2020 marks 15 years of the enactment of the Right to Information (RTI) law in India. According to a report by Satark Nagrik Sangathan and the Centre for Equity Studies, more than 2.2 lakh cases of right to information are pending before the Central and State Information Commissions (ICs), which are final courts of appeal under the RTI Act, 2005. This report was published on the occasion of the completion of the 15-year of Right to Information (RTI).
RTI, 2005
It sets out the rules and procedures regarding citizens’ right to information.
It has replaced the former Freedom of Information Act, 2002.
The act was enacted in order to consolidate the fundamental right of ‘freedom of speech’ in the Indian constitution. Since RTI is implicit in the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution so it is an implied fundamental right.
Key Provisions of the act
Section 4 of the RTI Act requires suo motu disclosure of information by each public authority.
Section 8 (1) mentions exemptions against furnishing information under RTI Act.
Section 8 (2) provides for disclosure of information exempted under Official Secrets Act, 1923 if larger public interest is served.
Every year nearly six million applications are filed under the RTI Act, making the RTI act of India as the most extensively used transparency legislation in the world.
The 2019 amendments to the RTI Act has done away with the statutory protection of fixed tenure and high status conferred on the ICs. The new amendment allows the Central Government to determine the tenure and salaries of all information commissioners. This may have a negative impact on the independence of the information commissioners.
Key observations
During Covid-19 lockdown out of the total 29 ICs that were surveyed surveyed, 21 were not holding any hearings.
Even the websites of 3 ICs including Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Nagaland were not accessible during the lockdown.
Websites of 11 commissions out of 29, had no information or notification about the functioning of the IC during the lockdown.
The governments have not been appointing information commissioners in a timely manner which severely impeded the functioning of commissions.
Of the 29 ICs, two ICs of Jharkhand and Tripura had no commissioners for varying lengths of time. They were completely defunct.
4 ICs of Bihar, Goa, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were functioning without a Chief Information Commissioner.
The assessment found that on average, the CIC takes 388 days to dispose of an appeal/complaint from the date that it was filed before the commission.
The largest number of appeals pending, with more than 59,000 cases in Maharashtra, followed by Uttar Pradesh and the Central Information Commissions (CIC).
The report found that the Government officials face hardly any punishment for violating the law.
Suggestions
The government must ensure the timely appointment of chiefs and members of ICs as the increasing backlog of cases is exacerbated by the fact that most Commissions are functioning at reduced capacity.
It is absolutely essential that all information commissions hold timely and effective hearings and dispose cases in order to ensure that people can exercise their fundamental right to information.
Commissions should hold hearings telephonically and where possible, video calls can be set up.
Priority should be given to cases dealing with information related to life and liberty. Information regarding matters like food distribution, social security, health and COVID 19-related issues should be proactively disclosed.
Section 4 of the RTI Act requires suo motu disclosure of information by each public authority.
Urgent digitization of records and proper record management is crucial as lack of remote access to records in the lockdown has been widely cited as the rationale for not being able to conduct hearings of appeals and complaints by commissions.
Governments should put in place a mechanism for online filing of RTI applications.
