Govt to restrict RTI Act applicability

India’s transparency law – Right To Information – will not change but the government wants to restrict its applicability through other laws.

Updated on: Oct 16, 2011, 21:58:27 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India’s transparency law – Right To Information – will not change but the government wants to restrict its applicability through other laws.

Two new draft laws --- National Sports Development Bill and National Nuclear Safety Authority --- have specific provisions prohibiting disclosing information in addition to the exemption clauses already in the RTI law.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday wanted a “critical look” at these exemption clauses asking to examine changes in light of whether they serve “larger (public) good”. Law minister Salman Khurshid on Sunday ruled out any changes in the RTI law after the PM’s statement evoked strong reaction from National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy.

The draft sports law readied by Sports ministry after the Union Cabinet asked it to “re-cast” the bill this September, exempts information related to selection of sportspersons, their performance and injury from the purview of the RTI law, made applicable to sports bodies including Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

International Cricket Council president Sharad Pawar with renewable resources minister Farooq Abdullah and heavy industries minister Praful Patel had objected to invoking RTI for cricket.

“BCCI and sportspersons had apprehended that providing such information may give competitive edge to rivals and would also create bad blood among competing sportspersons,” Sports Minister Ajay Maken told HT.

He also explained that the objective of making RTI applicable to sports federations including BCCI was to bring administrative and financial transparency. “Without making any compromise on the issues of transparency and good governance we have tried to accommodate the genuine concerns of BCCI and other sports federations,” he said.

The draft law, which would soon be submitted for Cabinet consideration, also prohibits seeking information under RTI regarding dope tests conducted on players and their whereabouts, as objected by the BCCI. With these changes, the ministry believes it would be able to get the Cabinet approval.

The government intends to amend the RTI law to exempt the proposed nuclear energy regulator --- National Nuclear Safety Authority --- from ambit of the transparency law. The draft nuclear authority bill approved by the Cabinet intends to list the authority among government bodies such as CBI exempted from applicability of the transparency law.

The bill also seeks to amendment the RTI law to prevent seeking information on the ground of “large public interest” clause from the proposed authority. The RTI law provides for waiving off the exemption clauses if there is sufficient evidence to claim that providing information would be in public interest.

RTI blockades

Information exempted under RTI in National Sports Development Bill:

Selection or appointment of an athlete or trainer

Performance of an athlete in competitions

Medical health and fitness of sportspersons

Doping tests reports of athletes and confidential information under National Anti-Doping Code.

Proposed nuclear safety authority to be exempted from RTI

Specific clause seeking to amend RTI Act to prevent providing information under public interest doctrine of the RTI Act.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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