Strengthening the Right to Information
Saumitra Mohan

It has been more than two years since the Right to Information Act (RTI) came into force in October 2005. Immediately after its enforcement, a concern was expressed in certain quarters about adequate efforts not being made by all those concerned to implement the Act in its true spirit. It was felt that vested interests were making an all out effort to sabotage the Act.

Lot of hue and cry was heard when there was an attempt from within the government to water down certain portions of the Act by excluding the details of information contained in an official note sheet on the pretext of administrative necessity and for securing the officials against victimisation.

But in this all, people failed to realise that the Act was in its infancy and would take its time before it starts working to its potential. And it was not very late before people actually started realising the import and power of the right emanating from this particular Act. Now they seem intent on using the right enshrined in the Act for anything and everything pertaining to their civil right in democratic India.

While there were very few petitions seeking information under RTI to begin with, today there seems to be a deluge of such requests in almost all government departments and agencies. It has not only resulted in increased confidence among the general public about the utility of RTI in ferreting out information from the government on a subject of their interest, the same has also made the different government departments more transparent and responsible than they had ever been, something which was the real purport of this Act.

The many path-breaking decisions and judgements consequent to sundry appeals for information under RTI by the Central Information Commission and various State Information Commissions, the veil of secrecy hanging over the official records has slowly been lifting, resulting in substantive dilution of the draconian Official Secrets Act, 1923 which had been the last resort of a reluctant bureaucrat for denying even innocuous information to the members of common public on one or the other pretext including the one pertaining to state’s security and integrity and the larger public interest.

Now, several landmark decisions and judgements of the Central and State Information Commissions later, it is reinterpretation of the same ‘larger public interest’, which is being proffered as a ground on which various wings of central and state governments should be sharing the information with the common public of this country. Even though today the right to seek information under RTI has come into its own and has become a powerful tool for exercising one’s democratic rights, one feels that still a lot needs to be done to further strengthen and reinforce this right before it can really become a genuine weapon of popular control exercising benign influence over the different government bodies.

Even though the number of petitions requesting information under RTI has gone up by leaps and bounds, this number could be much more substantial than it is presently. Still, there is a lot which needs to be done to generate awareness among the people about their powers under RTI, though various adverse judgements of information commissions resulting in imposition of pecuniary and disciplinary action against many government servants are also creating enough awareness by way of demonstration effect.

Many government departments and bodies including judiciary have made it costlier for the hoi polloi to seek and access information. The price to seek and obtain information has been made prohibitive by many agencies defeating the very intents and purposes wherefor RTI was conceived. Since it has been left to various state governments and autonomous governments bodies to frame such rules relating to the various charges for information sharing, they have found an excuse in the same by way of making the same ridiculously high.

While these prohibitive costs to seek information do discourage non-serious information seekers, they also repel the many genuine ones who are not well-off enough to be able to foot the bill for the purpose. However, there are specific provisions in the Act about the inadvisability of charging anything from people below the poverty line. But one has to understand that there are many millions others in the country who, even though above the poverty line, are no better. These people are, at least, definitely not so better as to be able to spend a princely sum for seeking and obtaining information under RTI.

Then, there is a practical problem which has come to the fore after the requests seeking information started to flow in thick and fast. The problem relates to the shortage of staff and officers for attending such requests. It is because of this that there has been an overload of pending requests with different information commissions and government bodies.

Since there has been many landmark judgements by now wherein specific pecuniary penalties have been imposed upon many government servants for deemed deliberate failure to provide information in time and since such penalties have to footed from one’s own pockets, government staff and officers are found to be on toes now to attend to such requests and provide the requested information within the statutory 30 days’ period as per the Act.

Today, when many government departments and bodies are already reeling under the shortage of staff and officers in these times of downsizing and rationalizing of the size of the government employees, the normal functioning of these departments and bodies are severely getting hampered. As non-compliance under the Act results in personal financial loss including the fear of departmental proceedings, a government staff or officer is more than keen to attend to RTI requests before anything else.

Some of these problems have arisen also because of the fact that many government departments and bodies have still not put the requisite in-house information into the public domain as they are supposed to do under RTI. This also results in delay or outright refusal in furnishing of the desired information to the petitioners. When a request to furnish information on National Policy and Action Plan on computerization of judiciary under RTI was sent to the PIO (Public Information Officer) in the Ministry of Law and Justice, the response was “the details of implementation of the plan are still being worked out. That being so, it is not possible to give any information in the matter at this stage.”

Not only this, many government departments and bodies have still not notified the Assistant Public Information Officer (APIO), Public Information Officer (PIO) and the Appellate Authority (AA) as warranted by the Act. This has resulted in many such RTI petitions being shuffled around among various government departments and officers on the pretext that one has not been notified as APIO, PIO or AA to be able to entertain such a petition or that the desired information is not readily available in sharable form frustrating the purpose of the Act further.

There is no denying that in order to exercise the freedom of speech and expression effectively, you need an informed public opinion and it is here that the right to information comes into play. The right to information, thus, flows out of freedom of speech and expression. The Right to Information Act, 2005 is not the repository of the right to information. Its repository is the constitutional right to free speech and expression. The Right to Information Act is merely an instrument that lays down the statutory procedure in the exercise of this right. It is, therefore, necessary that all exceptions and denials of the right to information must necessarily conform to the restrictions that bear a nexus to those mentioned in Article 19 (2) and to none others.

So, there is an urgent need to do some further soul-searching as far as implementation of the Act is concerned. All the government departments and bodies should not only put all the permissible information pertaining to their establishments in readily sharable form, they should also immediately notify and properly publicise the APIO, PIO and AA for accessing information relating their offices. Also, it is advisable that such notified authorities should remain in the same office for ensuring better efficiency and accountability.

In fact, it is proposed that as far as possible, a self-contained office should have APIO, PIO and AA in the same premises. It makes the system more efficient and also makes it easier for the common public. For example, if the District Magistrate starts entertaining all RTI petitions pertaining to every office under his/her control and supervision, then he/she would be left with no time to attend to his/her normal work.

So, it is advisable that various authorities to be notified remain within the same premises. Moreover, the central and state governments should make further clarifications to ensure that the cost of seeking and obtaining information under RTI does in no case become prohibitive. Also, the entire process of moving an RTI application has to be further simplified. The phone-in system, as instituted in Bihar, should now be extended to rest of the country. This avoids a common citizens several trips to the government office. E-governance should be utilised to the maximum for the purposes of RTI.

Moreover, there shall also be a need for dedicated staff and officers to attend to RTI requests and also to pre-empt the hampering of the normal functioning of the office by engaging regular staff and officers. There is also a need for grant of specific financial grant to a government office for meeting various expenses required to be incurred for provisioning of information (e.g. xeroxing et al) and for further strengthening and reinforcing the service delivery system under RTI for being able to serve the people better.

If we are able to modify and further refine the Act, one is sure that the powers granted to a common citizen here shall go a long way in strengthening and reinforcing our democratic foundations.