Status of RTI

In News

• The Centre has only rejected 4.3% of all Right to Information (RTI) requests in 2019-20 according to the Central Information Commission’s annual report.
• The CIC’s annual report covers more than 2,000 public authorities across the Central government as well as the union territories.

Key Findings of the report

• Almost 40% of rejections did not include any valid reason, as they did not invoke one of the permissible exemption clauses in the RTI Act.
  • This includes 90% of rejections by the Prime Minister’s Office.
• Public authorities under the Central government received 13.7 lakh RTI requests in 2019-20, out of which 58,634 were rejected for various reasons.
• Rejection rates have fallen since the 13.9% rate in 2005-06, and have been steadily trending downwards since the 8.4% spike in 2014-15. In 2019-20, they hit their lowest level so far.
• The Home Ministry had the highest rate of rejections, as it rejected 20% of all RTIs received.

Provisions for rejecting  RTI requests

• The RTI Act allows public authorities to reject RTI requests on a number of grounds, ranging from information that would endanger life and safety to that which involves irrelevant personal information, Cabinet papers, foreign governments, copyrights, or sovereignty, security and intelligence matters.
• Public authorities are expected to cite the relevant clause of the Act to invoke the exemption.
• The rejection of an RTI application is “permissible” only under the exemptions given in Sections 8, 9, 11 and 24 of the act but the report shows a category of “others” used by government departments to discard applications
• Section 8(1)(j) saw the highest use. -It permits denial of access to personal information if disclosure has no relationship to any public activity or public interest or is likely to cause an unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual concerned. One-third of all permissible rejections invoked this clause.
• Section 24 of the Act
  • It exempts information related to security and intelligence organisations — except allegations of corruption and human rights violations — was also frequently used, with one in five permissible rejections coming under this category.

Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005

• An Act to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities.

Provisions

• Public Authorities need to make disclosures on various aspects of their structure and functioning. It includes
• Disclosure on their organisation, functions, and structure, powers and duties of its officers and employees, and financial information.
  • • ‘Public Authorities’ include bodies of self-government established under the Constitution, or under any law or government notification.
    • For instance, these include Ministries, public sector undertakings, and regulators.
• It also includes any entities owned, controlled or substantially financed and non-government organizations substantially financed directly or indirectly by funds provided by the government.
  • The act, in general, promotes pro-active and suo-moto disclosure of information by governments.
  • If any information is not available, citizens have the right to request it by a simple letter or email or through an online application for a nominal fee.
  • The intent behind the enactment of the Act is to promote transparency and accountability in the working of Public Authorities.

Functioning of Right to Information Act

• A three-tier structure for enforcing the right to information has been set up under the RTI Act 2005.
• Public Information Officers: The first request for information goes to the Assistant Public Information Officer and Public Information Officer, designated by the Public Authorities.
• These Officers are required to provide information to an RTI applicant within 30 days of the request.
• Appellate Authority: It caters to the appeals against decisions of the Public Information Officer.
• State Information Commission or the Central Information Commission (CIC): Their major function is to listen to appeals against the order of the Appellate Authority.
• These Information Commissions consist of a Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and up to 10 Information Commissioners(ICs).

Key Changes of Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019

Arguments by Government for these Reforms

• Constitutional v/s Statutory Bodies: A statutory body (CIC and ICs) can’t be compared with a constitutional Body viz. CEC and ECs.
• Rationalisation of Status and Service Conditions: Earlier, CIC was given the status of Supreme Court Judge but his judgements can be challenged in High Courts. Such dichotomy is now removed.
• No rule-making power to Government previously: Now the new amendment gives better control to the government over the statutory body.

Criticism of recent amendments

• Blow to Federalism: The role of State Governments have been diminished.
• Against Democratic value: Opposition now has no role in the appointment.
• A threat to transparency and accountability of CIC and ICs: Earlier the CIC and ICs were appointed with the consent of Opposition and function relatively independently due to fixed tenure and salary.
  • Now the new provisions make CIC and ICs a pawn to protect sensitive information related to the government.
  • The most fundamental requirement of any independent oversight institution like the CVC, CEC, the Lokpal is a basic guarantee of tenure which has been removed now.

• Against the Spirit of Supreme Court Judgement & Parliamentary Committee:
  • In 2005, the parliamentary standing committee reviewing the RTI Bill had said the terms of appointment of information commissioners was the “essence of the Bill”.
  • In the case of Anjali Bhardwaj & Ors. V/s UOI held that the RTI Act is enacted not only to sub-serve but also to ensure freedom of speech.

Way Forward

• Constitutional Status to CIC and ICs: The constitutional status will give RTI and CIC proper sovereign backing to function in an autonomous way.
• Awareness Campaigns: Any empowerment or transparency drive is incomplete without the involvement of stakeholders which can be ensured by mobilising NGOs and Citizens.
• Protection to RTI Activists: There have been incidents of attacks on RTI activists and they too should be given enough protection for whistleblowing against the corrupt.
• Balancing RTI with Privacy and Official Secrets Act: The concern regarding sensitive data needs to be well defined to avoid any vague dismissal of RTI applications by Public Information Officers.

Source:TH