Govt curbs RTI law in draft Biotech bill

The Department of Science and Technology has said that the proposed National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority will be the final authority in deciding whether particular information should be disclosed or not, undermining the Right to Information law, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 20, 2010, 01:37:29 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Department of Science and Technology has said that the proposed National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority will be the final authority in deciding whether particular information should be disclosed or not, undermining the Right to Information law.

Under the RTI act, the Central Information Commission is the final authority that decides on what information can or cannot be disclosed. The panel’s decision can be challenged in the high court.

“It (the draft bill) is several steps backwards in ensuring transparency in biotechnology science,” said Kavitha Kuruganti of NGO Kheti Virasat Mission.

In the 2008 draft bill, there was no mention of the RTI law. In the 2009 draft, the RTI law is dealt with in detail.

It was only after the 2008 version came out that the committee struck down the government’s objections to disclosing Bt brinjal data, saying it should be revealed in public interest.

Information on the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee website was questioned

by many scientists, including P.M. Bhargava, a GEAC member.

But the department, in the draft National Biotechnology Regulatory Bill, had said that the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005, would not be applicable to the new authority, which will have powers to describe any information as “confidential”.

“Disclosure of confidential commercial information, such information shall, notwithstanding anything contained in the Right to Information Act, 2005, be retained as confidential by the authority and not be disclosed to any other party,” reads Section 27 (1).

The government expects to introduce the bill in the second half of the budget session.

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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