Burning a hole in the government's oft used argument that Right to Information Act needed to be amended to prevent its misuse and discourage frivolous and vexatious applications, government-appointed Information Commissioners have said the legislation was not being misused. A survey by NGO Parivartan found that only 22% of Information Commissioners (ICs) felt that there was misuse of the law while only 11% felt that applications filed by people were...

KEY TRENDS   • Section 105 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which provides for excluding 13 Central legislation, including Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885, Atomic Energy Act, 1962, Railway Act 1989, National Highways Act 1956 and Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978, from its purview, has been amended for payment of compensation with rigours $ • The amendments have now...

Pushing the envelope regarding disclosure of confidential information, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has ruled that documents are open to public before being submitted to the Cabinet Secretariat for the Union Cabinet's consideration. This is a departure from the usual practice in the government where most public authorities took a wide view and denied all information related to Cabinet notes on the plea that the issue was under consideration and...

From retired and serving babus to journalists to even RTI activists and academicians, everyone seems to be angling for the posts of chief information commissioner (CIC) and Information Commissioners (ICs). In a delicious irony, all the names have come out in an RTI reply. Replying to an RTI plea filed by Mannish Bhatnagar, the department of personnel and training said 32 names were received for the posts of CIC and...

The method of selection of Information Commissioners cries out for reform. FOR the Right to Information (RTI) Act to be successful, it is not enough if it has provisions that encourage information-sharing and punish those Information Officers who deny requests for information on specious grounds. Activists have found that while deciding appeal cases the degree of commitment of Information Commissioners to the Act's objectives matters more than the supportive provisions of...