The Rajya Sabha passed the amendment to the Right to Information Bill 2019, which had already been cleared by the Lok Sabha on Monday. It was passed with 178 members favouring it and 79 against it. The Bill amends Sections 13 and 16 of the right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. Section 13 had set the term of the central CIC and Information Commissioners at five years, or until the age of 65, whichever was earlier. The amendment to this bill proposes to give the Centre the power to determine the salaries, tenures and service conditions of the Information Commissioners as well as the Chief Information Commissioners at both the central and state levels. Seven former Information Commissioners of the CIC have condemned the move of the NDA government to amend the RTI Act through the RTI Amendment Bill 2019. It was also met with strong objection from the Opposition.
When was the RTI act passed and what does it do?
Morarji Desai of the Janata Dal was the first Prime Minister of the post-Emergency era in India. Amid public resentment regarding the imposition of press censorship and abuse of power during the Emergency (1975-77), the newly elected Prime Minister constituted a working group as part of an effort to modify the Official Secrets Act 1923, so as to facilitate the flow of information to the public.
The working group however, refused to make any such change. In the famous case of Mr. Kulwal v/s Jaipur Municipal Corporation, the Supreme court ruled the statutory validity of the Right to Information with regard to Article 19 of the Constitution, which mentions Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression as a fundamental right. This is because Right to Information is a precondition for an individual’s Right to Freedom of Speech or Expression.
In 1990, Prime Minister V.P. Singh of the National Front Government attempted to enact a legislation in favour of RTI, but it failed to come to fruition. He was removed from office in 1990 after having lost the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha. In the MKSS (Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan) reinstituted the demand for the RTI Act in Rajasthan as a means of drawing attention to the underpayment of daily wage earners and farmers working on government projects. Their dissent was also undertaken as a means to expose the corruption and red-tapism on all levels of government expenditure.
This movement continued for several years, ultimately culminating in the passing of the Rajasthan Right to Information Act 2000, but only came into force on 26 January, 2001. It also gave impetus to the establishment of The National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) in 1996 which pushed for the passing of the RTI Act in India. Later that year, the NCRPRI, along with the Press Council of India, drafted the first version of a Right to Information Law, which was later renamed as the PCI-NIRD Freedom of Information Bill 1997. This draft law however, was not critically considered by the government. The Shourie Committee set up by the Central government was given the mandate to draft a legislation on freedom of information.
The Freedom of Information Bill 2000, was introduced in Parliament in 2002, and was passed in December, 2002. It received presidential assent on January, 2003, finally acquiring the status of an Act. However, it was never notified, and therefore never became effective. The inherent flaw in this Act could be attributed to the fact that it allowed appeals only among government bodies, and did not directly benefit the common people. It also barred the jurisdiction of the courts and did not allow any appeals to independent bodies. In the meantime, the states of Goa, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Maharashtra,
Karnataka and Delhi had already enacted their own laws with regard to RTI. In May, 2004, the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) led by the Congress Party came to power in Parliament. It appointed a National Advisory Council to monitor the implementation of the CMP (Common Minimum Programme), which promised among other things, to create a government that is corruption-free and accountable.
In August 2004, the NCPRI formulated a set of suggested amendments to the 2002 Freedom of Information Act , in consultation with various civil society groups. The government introduced the bill in Parliament on December 2004, along the lines recommended by the NAC. A revised RTI bill was introduced in Parliament on 22nd December, 2004. However, the fundamental flaw with the bill was the fact that it was applicable only to the Central government and not to the state governments.
This was a significant drawback, since most of the information required by the common men were with state governments, and not with the Central government. Therefore, the Bill was amended under a lot of pressure from civil society groups, the NCPRI and the NAC. The RTI Bill, as amended, was passed by both houses of the Indian Parliament in May 2005, and became fully operational from 13 October, 2005.
The first draft of the RTI Act presented in Parliament on December 2004 had proposed the creations of Information Commisions (consisting of not more than 10 Information Commissioners and a Chief Information Commissioner) as the final adjudicators to safeguard citizens’ information. The essence of the bill lay in the fact that the Information Commission be invested with complete autonomy regarding the tenure, salary and terms and conditions of the services of ICs. It also provided the Information Commission with complete autonomy as regards appeals to revelation of information.The RTI Amendment Act 2019 has done away with these provisions and has put the onus of these decisions on the Centre. The reason extended is that the Information Commission is a statutory body and not a constitutional one.
What does the 2019 amendment say about the state of accountability in our generation?
We have come a long way since the theocentric worldview of the Middle Ages. The Enlightenment ideals of the 18th century included a strong faith in human rationality, and consequently the right to freedom of speech and expression. The subversion of institutionalised religion and monarchy was the crux around which the rest of the movement developed. The ideals of liberty, progress, fraternity and separation of church and state were propagated. The onus of responsibility lay not on God, but on the dynamics of human reason. Accountability had shifted from God to the human mind.
The digital revolution of the 21st century has heralded an age of radical, and sometimes extremely contradictory choices, where accountability is no more a prerequisite for human integrity, but merely a matter of chance. It can be attributed to an overload of information on social media and the internet in general. Consequently, truth has become elusive and no longer a prerequisite to making decisions. This is an age where people are not being given access to facts by being exposed to too many facts.
This information boom propelled by Big Data has given rise to a generation which deals with a world lacking in accountability on a day-to-day basis. One does not expect to be able to have any first-hand knowledge whatsoever, of the world. Knowledge in any sphere is available only on the World Wide Web, which does not provide any pointers as to the authenticity of any information.
In such a scenario, one might say that the choices we make by chance, make us who we really are. Informed choices, choices made consciously, are indeed passé. This is the status quo which we call the 21st century. So who are indeed accountable for the choices we make? Nobody, to be specific. The accountability lies merely on the whim of a person who happened to make a random choice, out of the many other choices he could have made.
The RTI Amendment Act of 2019 is a political extension of a culture of zero accountability, foregrounding a wave of Conservative forces all over the world. It takes us back in history to a time when you would do as you were bid, without asking yourself why.
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