By Inderpal Singh

Abstract

Right to information (RTI) has emerged as an important idea in the modern understanding of democracy. India adopted its RTI act in 2005, after its long struggle through the corridors of the parliament. In this article, we try to trace the history and various dimensions of the Right to Information act in India while placing it in the larger context of being a democratic right.

Introduction

What will the most terrifying democracy in the world look like? It will probably be the one where the citizens have all the rights in the world, but know not about even one of them.

A recent report said that pending RTI pleas have been piling up at information commissions, and are currently as big a number as three lakh. The pending pleas were the highest in Maharashtra, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Bihar. Add to this the two states where the Information Commissions are defunct altogether – Jharkhand and Tripura – and the state of “information democracy” doesn’t look too encouraging.

Every year, various ministries, government organisations and other agencies are legally bound to publish their reports. Some do so at more frequent intervals: twice a year, or even quarterly. The Ministry of Home Affairs, for instance, releases a document each month listing out its “Monthly Major Achievements”. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting releases a report of “PM’s 15 Points Programme for the Welfare of Minorities”, a programme launched in 2005, every three months.

Reporting and broadcasting information is an organic way of maintaining accountability and transparency in any organisation, especially one that works in the public interest. The idea that freedom of information is also a human right has gained currency in recent years, and hence we have many countries of the world enacting their versions of the “Right to Information Act”. 

An RTI act is an extension of this very basic idea that citizens of a country ought to have a right to access information (with some reasonable restrictions) from the data available in the nation. This is not just well in tune with the spirit of democracy but is one of the often-forgotten but bare minimum requirements of it.

In India, the enactment of RTI in 2005 was a landmark legislation in the interest of this right.

RTI 2005: a brief appraisal

A right to information or a freedom of information means two things: one, broadcasting of information by the public agencies through effective means at regular intervals (in the form of reports, publications, press-releases etc.), and two, a right to inquire such information and also seek information not available in such a broadcast.

RTI was enacted after a long history of campaigning and demand for such a law. The first ever draft law was proposed by Consumer Education and Research Council, Ahmedabad (CERC) in 1993. Several others were introduced similarly by various parties, including one by the Press Council of India in 1996, but got ignored since this was a politically unstable period for India with the rise of coalition governments. The economy was also recovering from India’s biggest economic crisis, the crisis of 1991-92; so the nation had other priorities.

India finally got a government that completed its full term in 1999, and therefore in 2002, the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act was formulated, getting the stamp of President in 2003. However, lacking a notified date of implementation, the act couldn’t come into operation.

With the new UPA government of Dr Manmohan Singh in 2004, amendments were proposed to the FOI act and finally the decades-long campaign snowballed into the Right to Information Act, 2005, getting the assent of the then President, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam on 15 June 2005, becoming the landmark law that it is.

A study of the RTI word to word shows how it is an important legislation.

Studying the RTI

The RTI mentions that the act aims to “promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority”, and that authority has an obligation to furnish the desired information to “citizens who desire to have it.” The word ‘citizens’ obviously means that the act applies in the spirit of rule of law to include the poor, the marginalized and even the criminals. The said desirous citizen doesn’t even need to supply a reason for requesting the information, which makes the law even more accessible and powerful in its essence.

Except for certain information enjoying exemption from RTI – viz. security information, forbidden information, information involving breach of privilege, relating to intellectual property or trade secrets, private information of a person, confidential foreign information, information that endangers life or safety of a person, impedes an investigation, and cabinet papers – all other information falls under the purview of the law. The act clearly states that every public authority needs to designate an officer who would carry the RTI request to the State Information Officer or the Central Information Officer.

In case of rejection of an RTI application, or provision of insufficient information, one has the right to appeal twice with their application. The RTI act clearly states that the required information must be furnished within thirty days of the receipt of request, and if the request concerns the life and liberty of a person, then within forty-eight hours. If an RTI request is not responded to, a citizen has the right to either appeal to a senior officer in the same public authority, or to file a complaint with the relevant information commission.

More than a simple legal right, Right to and Freedom to seek information can be seen growing as a human right. A page on Vikaspedia (which is a portal developed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) talks about a number of instances from Rajasthan to Karnataka to the jails of UP which benefited from the law. People of a Rajasthan village used to act to catch a corrupt ration shopkeeper and impose a fine on him. In Bagepalli, a town 100 kms north of Bangalore, some citizens used RTI to check on the funds allotted for the construction of a road, finding out how 1.15 cr of the 1.3 cr allotted were shown as spent. With this information, they went on to question the authorities, and a scam was busted. In UP, one national working committee member used RTI to raise questions on the overcrowding of jails owing to the imprisonment of undertrials. This snowballed into the Supreme Court issuing orders to NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) to frame policy to grant bails to prisoners facing trials. 

In the world of information technology, information is power, and it enables the public-spirited citizens to take action in the collective interest: whether it is broadcast information or sought information. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) classifies the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds” as a civil and political right.

Quality Education is a Sustainable Development Goal, and information (that information which makes a citizen more aware and empowered) is an essential part of quality education. In the information world, information is a privilege, and the non-disclosure of that information is equivalent to the snatching away of that privilege. There is a pressing need that we also talk about Freedom of Information explicitly and in its own right. 

Before a state as large as India goes on to use RTI to its maximum advantage in the spirit of democracy, it is important to make them aware that the right exists, and the immense potential it holds to bring a revolution to fight corruption, administrative lethargy and misinformation.

For a prisoner to break free from their shackles, it is necessary for them to know in the first place that they are a prisoner.

Author’s Bio

Inderpal Singh is a student of Political Science and English Literature at St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi. He is an intern at Asia Society Policy Institute, India.

Image source: Lucas