LETHAL: Govt-CIC tirade to kill RTI

LETHAL: Govt-CIC tirade to kill RTI

http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/ecostani/2012/08/11/lethal-govt-cic-tirade-to-kill-rti/

With the Central Information Commission joining hands with the
Government, country's Right to Information (RTI) Act is surely heading
for slow death, a desire of both politicians and bureaucrats.

Although the Central government had been trying dilution of the
transparency law for years, it succeeded to some extend this week
through new Right to Information (RTI) Rules 2012.

The new rule supersedes the Central Information Commission (Appeal
Procedure) Rules, 2005 and the Right to Information (Regulation of
Fees and Cost) Rules, 2005 and was issued without any prior
consultation with civil society or citizens.

In fact, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) —
government's nodal office for the RTI — treated the rules as a "top
secret" and did not place them on its website even after the
notification was issued. It was my colleague Aloke Tikku who placed
the detrimental rules in public domain with his stories on Friday and
Saturday.

The way the rules were notified to dilute the parent law shows the
intention of the government that is obstructionist in its approach
towards RTI. Instead of making getting information easier for people
the government has made it tough.

For the first time a condition of the application should not be of
more than 500 words had been made applicable and the poor will have
attach below poverty line certificate to claim exemption from the RTI
fees of Rs 10. Several civil society members such as National Advisory
Council (NAC) member Aruna Roy had opposed such conditions saying it
will interfere in citizen's right to seek information.

It is a well known fact that the bureaucrats and politicians are
extremely unhappy with people asking them uneasy questions such as how
much of public money has been spent on their travel. RTI has exposed
that bureaucrats and politicians in a year travel a distance between
earth and moon in a year with no accountability linked to such
travels.

If that was not enough the body of retired bureaucrats — the Central
Information Commission — has been ensuring through its orders that
people feel defeated in the long battle to seek information.

Recently, Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra rejected an
appeal seeking correspondence between the Prime Minister and Chief
Justice of India on the ground that it did not specify which
information was needed. Another Information Commissioner Sushma Singh
has a standard format to revert back the RTI appeals in cases where
the first appellate authority had failed to decide on the issue within
the specified time period. As a result, the battle to get information
from cloaks of government secrecy gets longer and longer.

Many of the other information commissioners appointed by the
government without any transparency and selection process are no
better. They have been helping the government to curb the voice of
dissent, essential for a matured democracy. It is resulting in growing
frustration among civil society using RTI to bring in a positive
change.

As, National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy had said, the space for
dissention in India is crunching with the governments cracking upon
those who stand to oppose them. May be media controlled through
government advertisements or civil society members through state
repression.

The trend — obvious with increase on attack on RTI activists — is
lethal and a sad commentary for our independence heading for 65 years.

Sadly, it is happening during the tenure of UPA government credited
with bringing a people friendly transparency law and involving civil
society in governance through NAC.