BLOG- Right to Information in India

INTRODUCTION

The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI) is a Central Legislation “to provide for setting out the particular regime of right to information for citizens”. The government of India enacted Right to Information Act in the year 2005 and which came into force on October 12, 2005. It has replaced the Freedom of Information Act 2002. This act is applicable throughout India except for the state of Jammu and Kashmir. (Jammu and Kashmir has a similar act which was enacted in 2009.)[1]

Right to Information Act 2005 mandates timely response to citizen requests for government information. It is an initiative taken by Department of Personnel and Training, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances, and Pensions to provide a RTI Portal Gateway to the citizens for quick search of information on the details of first Appellate Authorities, PIOs etc. amongst others, besides access to RTI related information / disclosures published on the web by various Public Authorities under the government of India as well as the State Governments.

The Act relaxes the Official Secrets Act of 1889 which was amended in 1923 and various other special laws that restricted information disclosure in India. In other words, the Act explicitly overrides the Official Secrets Act and other laws in force as on 15 June 2005 to the extent of any inconsistency.

Right to Information empowers every citizen to seek any information from the Government, inspect any Government documents and seek certified photocopies thereof. Right to Information also empower citizens to official inspect any Government work or to take sample of material used in any work. So, people have a right to know what the representatives elected by them are doing for their welfare. People have got the powers to obtain copies of permissible government documents, inspect permissible documents and inspect permissible government works and samples and obtain information in the form of printouts, diskettes, floppies, tapes, video cassettes or in any other electronic mode.

RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT, 2005

Right to Information (RTI) is an Act of the Parliament of India to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens and replaces the erstwhile Freedom of information Act, 2002. Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen of India may request information from a “public authority” which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to proactively certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally.[2]

This law was passed by Parliament on 15 June 2005 and came fully into force on 12 October 2005. “The first application was given to a Pune police station.” Information disclosure in India was restricted by the Official Secrets Act 1923 and various other special laws, which the new RTI Act relaxes. It codifies a fundamental right of citizens.

The enactment of this Act encouraged participatory democracy where people have the right to know. In the case of R.P.Limited v. Indian Express newspapers the Supreme Court has read into article 21 of the constitution regarding the right to know. To quote the Supreme Court “Right to know is a basic right which citizens of a free country aspire in the broader horizon of the right to live in this age in our land under Article 21 of the Constitution.”

What is the SCOPE of the ACT?

The Act covers the whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir, where J&K Right to Information Act is in force. It covers all constitutional authorities, including the executive, legislature and judiciary; any institution or body established or constituted by an act of Parliament or a state legislature. It is also defined in the Act that bodies or authorities established or constituted by order or notification of appropriate government including bodies “owned, controlled or substantially financed” by government, or non-Government organizations “substantially financed, directly or indirectly by funds”.

What are the OBJECTIVES of the ACT?[3]

The basic object of the Right to Information Act is to empower the citizens, promote transparency and accountability in the working of the Government, contain corruption, and make our democracy work for the people in real sense. It goes without saying that an informed citizen is better equipped to keep necessary vigil on the instruments of governance and make the government more accountable to the governed. The Act is a big step towards making the citizens informed about the activities of the Government.

What are the important PROVISIONS of the ACT?

The Parliament recognized that proper and efficient functioning of a democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information and that such transparency is vital for checking corruption and to hold governance and their instrumentalities accountable to the citizen of the country. The Parliament was also conscious that random and uncontrolled revelation of information is likely to conflict with other public interests including efficient operations of the governance, optimum use of limited fiscal resources and preservation of confidentiality of sensitive information.

In its endeavor to balance out and harmonize these conflicting interests while preserving the paramount of the democratic idea, the Parliament enacted the RTI Act. The important provisions of the Act are-

Sec. 4 of the Act imposes an obligation on public authorities to maintain its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and form which facilitates the right to information under the Act.

Sec. 6 of the Act entitles a person desirous of obtaining any information under the Act, to make a request in writing to the Central or State Public Information Officer specifying the particulars of the information sought by him. The applicant is not required to give any reason as to why he is requesting for the information.

Sec. 7 of the Act requires the Public Information Officer to either provide the information or reject the request for any of the reasons specified in Secs.8 and 9 within 30 days of receipt of the request. If the Officer fails to give decision on the request within 30 days, he shall be deemed to have refused the request.

Under Sec. 19, if a person does not receive a decision within 30 days or is aggrieved by a decision of the Public Information Officer, he may prefer an appeal to an Officer who is senior in rank to the Public Information Officer in that Public Authority.

A second appeal is provided for against the order passed in the first appeal before the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission as the case may be. The powers of the Information Commission are enacted in Sub-Sec. 9 of Sec. 19 which includes the power to require the Public Authority to compensate the complainant for any loss or other detriment suffered and/or to impose any of the penalties provided under the RTI Act.

Sec. 20 of the Act empowers the Information Commission to impose penalty on the Public Information Officer if the Commission is of the opinion that the Officer without any reasonable cause refused to receive an application for information or has not furnished the information sought for within the specified time under Sec. 7(1).

Sec. 22 of the Act is a non- obstante clause giving overriding effect to the provisions of the Act.

Under Sec. 25, the Information Commission is required after the end of each year to prepare a report on the implementation of the provisions of the Act during that year and forward a copy thereof to the appropriate Government.[4]

Right to information is not absolute. Section 8 of the RTI A excludes matters relating to national security, sovereignty, foreign government and law enforcement. Information on defense is available to all foreign countries through newspapers but it is exempted from this Act and our own citizens do not have access to such information. Such exemptions must be reduced for the proper functioning of this act. Section 4(2) of the RTI Act allows the public authority to reveal information that is personal though it infringes the right to privacy of an individual in the interest of larger public.

According to section 23 of the Act, lower courts are barred from entertaining suits or applications against any order made under this Act.

In order to harness the potential of the RTI it is necessary for the public to be made aware of the act. The state government under section 26(1)(a)(b) & (c) required to organize awareness programs to educate the public but in reality nothing of this sort is done. Conducting training workshops for PIO’s will help in better implementation of the act.

What makes RTI Act BENEFICIAL?

Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen may request information from a “public authority” (a body of Government or “instrumentality of State”) which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to proactively disclose certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally. Indian constitution permits its citizen to speak and express without any fear. How can a person speak against the government if he or she does not have enough information? A victimized citizen can feel but without information he or she is helpless to do anything. Right to information act in India is recognition of democracy that requires informed citizenry and transparency of information just for a better functioning.

Right to Information includes the right to: Inspect works, documents, records. Take notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records. Take certified samples of material. Obtain information in form of printouts, diskettes, floppies, tapes, video , cassettes or in any other electronic mode or through printouts. “information” means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force.

The term “record” includes:

1. Any document, manuscript and file;
2. Any microfilm, microfiche, and facsimile copy of a document;
3. Reproduction of image or images embodied in such microfilm (whether enlarged or not);
4. Any other material produced by a computer or any other device;

How the INFORMATION is sought under the RTI Act?

Just a single handwritten query is enough from your end to get your concerned information from the government authority. Even this act makes a common man so powerful that the person does not need to show any reason why he or she needs such information.

Every government office will have its own PIO (Public Information Officer) who is responsible to accept the request from the public and provide the information within 30 days of their request. Also there are APIOs (Assistant Public Information Officers) available in the post offices located in main cities and towns.

The request or application is made in an ordinary paper with minimum fee of Rs. 10/- against cash receipt. Personnel below poverty line are exempted from this. A certificate stating that the individual is from below poverty line should be provided while submitting the application.

Who is COVERED under RTI Act?

The Central RTI Act extends to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir. All bodies, which are constituted under the Constitution or under any law or under any Government notification or all bodies, including NGOs, which are owned, controlled or substantially financed by the Government are covered.

All private bodies, which are owned, controlled or substantially financed by the Government, are directly covered. Others are indirectly covered. That is, if a government department can access 1information from any private body under any other Act, the same can be accessed by the citizen under the RTI Act through that government department.

What is the TIME LIMIT to get the INFORMATION under the RTI Act?

The time frame to obtain any information is 30 days from the date of application. If the application was submitted through APIO, then the time frame is 35 days. In the case of information relating to life and death warranting very urgent information, the information to be provided within 48 hours from the time of application

What are RESTRICTIONS in seeking INFORMATION under the RTI Act?

There is a restriction in seeking information according to the official secret act 1923 and such information will not be revealed or provided to the citizen of India in the interest of the country’s security. No information pertaining to offices and section dealing with security of the nation which will endanger the national security, security to personnel, Like the defence, CB CID, BSF, Police etc; However, any issues relating to malfunction or corruption in the department are excluded , and can be sought through this RTI act.

How the INFORMATION is provided under the RTI Act?

The requested information is provided as Xeroxed copies of the original document. A sum of Rs. 2 (Rupees two only) is charged as stationery charge for A4 size paper. To obtain information in a floppy disc, a sum of Rs. 50/-(Rupees Fifty only) is charged. This may vary from state to state of India.

If the required information is not provided within the stipulated time period then an appeal can be made to the appellate authority by the appellant/ information seeker. If the first appeal is not replied, then the second appeal can be made to the Information Commission.

What ACTION is taken against the PIO who fails to provide INFORMATION?

The officer is charged Rs. 250 per day as penalty for the delay. He is likely to be charged Rs. 25000 for providing wrong information or for denial of information and disciplinary action will be initiated against the officer who fails to provide information and if his explanation is not duly justified.

What are the ADVANTAGES and DISADVANTAGES of the RTI Act?

Advantages of RTI:

1. Empowerment of the common man: The entire range of common man in the nation has been empowered by such an initiative in which they have got the full rights to be informed about anything that affects their life directly or indirectly and the responsible bodies have to answer them positively.
2. Easy mode of spreading information rightfully: The RTI has incubated a very concrete and easy mode of spreading information of all kind in all form where apt information will be received by only the person concerned and this will in turn result in easy accessibility to information on one hand and time conservation of all.
3. Protection of Information: Since, the selected people with selected queries will be entertained and informed rightfully and aptly, so this will lead to protection of information thereby protecting everyone from being wrongly or inappropriately informed or misinformed.
4. Corruption will decrease gradually: If a person being asks for information on certain products and services and the answer has to be delivered by a competent and responsible authority then the chances of corruption will certainly minimize. People will not have to bother about being cheated or victims of frauds and scams.

DISADVANTAGES:-

1. Unnecessary chaos all over: There is a big drawback that sustains in our nation, and that is a fact that in this immensely populated nation and that is the habit to create unnecessary disturbance and chaos over a newly incorporated plan just to create nuisance. Cases have been filed against fetching wrong information and asking for abrupt information from different officials at various levels and this creates nothing but an overall chaos.
2. An extra burden to the Authorities: Since the authorized persons are already having loads of works and tasks to be delivered at their end and after this new act passed they have additional burden to be done and delivered.
3. Multiple Public Information Officers (PIO): The government has appointed multiple PIO’s. This results in running of citizens from office to office in search of correct PIO who can yield correct information.
4. People’s accessibility is hectic and time consuming: There are many offices of PIO where the access of common man is very prolonged and it becomes very hectic to carry out the process. The subsystems created beneath the system are basically problematic.

Why Right To Information Act of 2005 is a SUCCESS and what it has done for INDIA?

Right to Information Act is a success because, for the first time in the history of independent India, there is a law which casts a direct accountability on the officer for non-performance. If the information provided is false, a penalty of a maximum of Rs 25,000/- can be imposed. A penalty can also be imposed for providing incomplete or for rejecting your application for malafide reasons. This fine is deducted from the officer’s personal salary.

When different people use the tool of RTI to benefit our society, RTI has contributed a lot to our society and with the help of RTI we came to know the scams and other illegal acts which the government and their officials are doing with us. 11 years back the Right to Information Act, 2005 was enforced and has helped expose some of the most infamous scams in the history of India. For example,[5]

1. The RTI applications filed by activists Yogacharya Anandji and Simpreet Singh in 2008 exposed the infamous Adarsh Housing Society scam, which eventually led to the resignation of the then Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chauhan.

That RTI application revealed that flats in the Adarsh Housing Society, a 31-storey building, which was originally meant to provide residence for war widows and veterans, were used to house politicians, bureaucrats, and their relatives.

2. In the 2G scam, in which the then Telecom Minister A Raja undercharged mobile phone companies for frequency allocation licenses and caused a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the Indian government, an RTI application by Subhash Chandra Agrawal revealed that Raja had a “15-minute-long” meeting with then solicitor-general Goolam E Vahanvati on December 2007 after which a “brief note was prepared and handed over to the minister”, but the minutes of the meeting were not recorded, stated this report in The Huffington Post.
3. The RTI Act was also used to expose corruption after the Commonwealth Games scam, in which the corrupt deals by politician Suresh Kalmadi embarrassed the nation. The report said that an RTI application filed by non-profit Housing and Land Rights Network showed that the then Delhi government had diverted Rs 744 crore from social welfare projects for Dalits to the Commonwealth Games from 2005-06 to 2010-11.
4. In 2007, the RTI request filed by Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, an NGO, revealed irregularities in the distribution of food meant for people living below the poverty line by the public distribution system in Assam, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. In 2008, an RTI application by a Punjab-based NGO revealed that heads of the local branches of the Indian Red Cross Society had used money intended for the victims of the Kargil war and natural disasters to buy cars, air-conditioners and pay for hotel bills.
5. A PTI report published in July 2016 said that an RTI query showed that only 12 members of the Maharashtra Cabinet have declared their assets and liabilities details as per Central governments code of conduct for ministers. Another one filed by social activist Anil Galgali showed that as many as 118 complaints of sexual harassment were filed with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) between 2013 and July this year.

Attacks on RTI activists in India

Many Right to Information Act (RTI) activists, including policemen, have been harassed and even murdered for seeking information to “promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority” in India. Many face assaults on a regular basis. People seeking information from their gram panchayat and the local administration also face social ostracism. A few activists, who sought information under RTI related to MNREGA scams, were killed. Many threats and attacks (including murder) go unreported by the media.2

The Asian Centre for Human Rights recommends that a separate chapter, “Protection of those seeking information under the (RTI) Act”, be inserted into the Act. Protection measures should include

(a)mandatory, immediate registration of complaints of threats or attacks against RTI activists on the First Information Report and placing such FIRs before the magistrate or judge of the area within 24 hours for issuance of directions for protection of those under threats and their family members, and periodic review of such protection measures;

(b)conducting inquiry into threats or attacks by a police officer not below the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police/Assistant Commissioner of Police, to be concluded within 90 days; and

(c)trial of the accused within six months. (d)We know, ‘Prevention is better than cure, we should make changes in the present RTI Act which should ensure the anonymity of the Applicant, this can be achieved by removing the compulsion of mentions of name and address of the applicant. And the Information should be posted on the Official Website.

CONCLUSION

It is difficult to decide as to if a right to information is a boon or a bane to our country. The RTI Act has helped to raise the feeble and unheard voice of the Indian public. It has created a sense of responsibility not only on the officials but also on the people. RTI is encouraging participative democracy. It has built a sense of involvement in the people. It helps the people to get the information pertaining to self-relating to the government. Also helps to find out the corrupt functioning of the government and its officials. It keeps a check on government to conduct its business in a very fair manner.

The RTI Act has been enacted to do good to the society and the people. Many government scandals have been brought out to light with the help of this good act. Hope the RTI Act is utilized to the fullest extent for the welfare of the public and at the same time RTI might cause the breakdown of the constitutional machinery which may prove dangerous to our country if it continues to function with the existing loopholes. The Right to Information Act has been conceived and delivered in a better shape that will lead India to move forward by reducing corruption in government departments. With this, a government servant recognises and respects the citizen of India and the government fears its people for wrong doings. However, measures have to be taken to improve this Act.

REFERENCES

[1] http://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/article/right-to-information-act-boon-or-bane-1821-1.html

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Information_Act,_2005

[3] http://rti.gov.in/

[4] http://righttoinformation.wiki/guide/applicant/fundamental-facts-about-rti

[5] http://www.firstpost.com/india/right-to-information-what-11-years-of-the-rti-act-of-2005-have-done-for-india-3047286.html

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