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Manmohan's RTI speech revives old chestnuts by Vidya Subrahmaniam

Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra demanded on Friday that the Central Information Commission be upgraded to the status of a Constitutional authority along the lines of the Election Commission of India and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

RTI circles interpreted Mr. Mishra's intervention, coming after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's call for a critical look at the Right to Information Act, as an effort to safeguard the Act and the Commission from predatory official moves. An independent Commission would have the authority and power to set its own agenda.

The reaction to Dr. Singh's speech, delivered at the two-day RTI convention held here, was mixed. He did not unequivocally defend the law, as RTI enthusiasts undoubtedly wanted and expected, especially after the spate of ministerial comments denouncing the Act for interfering with the functioning of the Government. On the other hand, he did not issue any overt threats. The Prime Minister said all the right things: The Act had opened large areas to public scrutiny which would otherwise have remained “hidden from public gaze”; RTI had turned into a “powerful tool” to fight corruption and improve governance; and “we have travelled further down the path of ensuring transparency and accountability in our administration.”

Yet Dr. Singh's discomfiture with the Act was clear. The points he flagged — the deluge of vexatious applications; the Act's propensity to impede free discussion within government and whether the change is needed in the exemption clauses — have all served in the past as a bone of contention between the Government and RTI activists. The Department of Personnel and Training, the nodal body for RTI, fought a marathon battle with RTI activists and Information Commissioners to keep “file notings” (which Dr. Singh referred to as “the deliberative process.”) within the exemptions prescribed under Section 8 of the Act. The DoPT finally backed off, resulting in “file notings” being given out freely, and often routinely, by ministries and departments, including the DoPT itself.

Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi's interpretation of the Prime Minister's speech stated, “He did not indicate that the Government is happy with the way RTI has turned out. But to be fair to him, he did not say anywhere that the Act would be diluted. My own sense is that we will not see any drastic action immediately but we are gradually moving in the direction of amendments.”

Veteran RTI warrior Subhash Chandra Agrawal felt that the Prime Minister's speech hinted at a dilution of the Act. “What does the Government want? Should the guilty not be punished? Should scams go undetected?” he asked. Mr. Agrawal, however, blamed the situation on ministerial over-reactions and “some out-of-proportion” reporting by the media of the controversial Finance Ministry file noting: “There is nothing unusual in an officer writing ‘FM has seen' for several hundred pages of documents that flow between the minister and his officers. No minister can practically see every word put up to him.”

Mr. Agrawal felt that the government and the Prime Minister's Office in particular, have so far been exemplary in the way they have handed out critical information. “There is an RTI role in virtually every scam that has been exposed. The 2007 correspondence between the Prime Minister and A. Raja, which drew the attention of the Supreme Court, was revealed through RTI. Likewise, file notings helped detect the irregular appointment of P.J. Thomas as Chief Vigilance Commissioner. None of this could have come out without Government departments agreeing to give out information.”

Perhaps apprehending changes to the Act, RTI pioneer Aruna Roy had made known her views recently: “The RTI Act has sufficient safeguards, such as cabinet notes will be revealed only after the decision is taken. Similarly many issues of public interest are exempt under Section 8. The issue of file notings has been decisively settled and if the government were to attempt to go back on it, it will not be accepted by activists or people of this country.”