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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The tremor of unwelcome amendments to the RTI Act -Aruna Roy & Nikhil Dey

The tremor of unwelcome amendments to the RTI Act -Aruna Roy & Nikhil Dey

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published Published on Jul 22, 2019   modified Modified on Jul 22, 2019
-The Hindu

The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill is a twin attack on accountability and the idea of federalism

“Amendments” have haunted the Right to Information (RTI) community ever since the RTI Act came into effect almost 14 years ago. Rarely has a law been so stoutly defended by activists. It is not possible to pass a perfect law. But it was a popular opinion strongly held by most RTI activists that a demand for progressive amendments could be used as a smokescreen by the establishment to usher in regressive changes.

Nevertheless, the sword of Damocles of regressive amendments has hung over the RTI with successive governments. Amendments have been proposed since 2006, just six months after the law was implemented and many times thereafter. Peoples’ campaigns, through reasoned protest and popular appeal, have managed to have them withdrawn.

The proposed amendments tabled in Parliament on July 19, 2019 have been in the offing for some time now. In the form of the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019, they seek to amend Sections 13, 16, and 27 of the RTI Act which carefully links, and thereby equates, the status of the Central Information Commissioners (CICs) with the Election Commissioners and the State Information Commissioners with the Chief Secretary in the States, so that they can function in an independent and effective manner. The deliberate dismantling of this architecture empowers the Central government to unilaterally decide the tenure, salary, allowances and other terms of service of Information Commissioners, both at the Centre and the States. Introducing the Bill in the Lok Sabha, the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Jitendra Singh, asserted that this was a benevolent and minor mechanism of rule-making rather than a basic amendment to the RTI law.

Agent of change

Why is there unseemly haste and determination to amend the law? Some feel that it is because the RTI helped with the cross-verification of the affidavits of powerful electoral candidates with official documents and certain Information Commissioners having ruled in favour of disclosure. It is unlikely to be a set of instances but more the fact that the RTI is a constant challenge to the misuse of power. In a country where the rule of law hangs by a slender thread and corruption and the arbitrary use of power is a daily norm, the RTI has resulted in a fundamental shift — empowering a citizen’s access to power and decision-making. It has been a lifeline for many of the 40 to 60 lakh ordinary users, many of them for survival. It has also been a threat to arbitrariness, privilege, and corrupt governance. More than 80 RTI users have been murdered because their courage and determination using the RTI was a challenge to unaccountable power.

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The Hindu, 22 July, 2019, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-tremor-of-unwelcome-amendments/article28628537.ece?homepage=true


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