RTI law 'disappoints' with mixed grades

One year after the Right to Information Act was enacted, free flow of information is still a distant dream, writes Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Oct 11, 2006, 14:47:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Free flow of information is still a distant dream despite efforts by the government. On Thursday, the federal Right to Information Act - billed a watershed in administrative transparency and citizens’ empowerment - will be a year old. But a pre-birthday jog down the performance lane rates it as “more of a disappointment than a weapon of mass empowerment” as envisaged by the National Advisory Council that drafted the law.

Even members of the Central Information Commission including chief information commissioner (CIC) Wajahat Habibullah and information commissioner O.P. Kejriwal admit that it has been “partially successful”. “We may not have been able to tap the potential of the Act,” Kejriwal said.

A nationwide survey by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS), released on Tuesday, explains the reasons why the Act has failed to deliver. Most of the 19 states in which the survey was conducted have only two information commissioners housed in temporary offices with very little fund and manpower. States like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra have only one information commissioner.

The RTI Act allows appointment of 10 commissioners. The survey says appointment of retired government officials as information commissioners has been the rea son behind the failure of the law.

In Assam, a retired IPS officer heads the commission whereas a retired judge is at the helm in Uttar Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh is the only exception where the three commissioners are from different professions. RTI activists feel commissioners should be from different backgrounds to make the law more effective.

Another deterrent is the high processing fee charged by some states in violation of the Act, which stipulates Rs 10 for an application. States like Haryana and Tamil Nadu charge Rs 50, whereas Maharashtra and Orissa charge Rs 25 for an appeal. Andhra Pradesh scores as it charges no fee at the village level. The mandals and the district-level organizations charge a slightly higher amount.

Another reason why the Act has been ineffective is the information commissioners’ reluctance to use the penalty clause against officials providing wrong or no information.

The survey points out that no states, barring Goa and Karnataka, have invoked the clause. In Delhi, the CIC invoked the clause in two cases and later withdrew the penalty in one case.

Kejriwal, however, defends the commissioners saying indiscriminate use of the clause might have led to the collapse of the administrative machinery. Shekhar Singh of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information feels that a more stringent use of the clause will send the message to the bureaucracy that tinkering with the Act will not be tolerated.

“Now, the feeling in bureaucracy is that the Information Commissioners will protect them rather than punish them,” he said. Like Kejriwal, most RTI activists, are optimistic despite the initial hiccups.“The Act has indicated that it is a powerful weapon to change the work culture”.

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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