Govt should've moved court against CIC ruling

The cabinet decided on August 1st that it would amend the RTI Act to countermand the Central Information Commission’s decision declaring six political parties as being subject to the RTI. Government spokespersons have said that the CIC decision is bad in law. If they really believed this, they should have challenged it in a court.

The authority to make or change laws must be used with great responsibility, and it is sad that the cabinet has not shown maturity in this matter.

Any decision curtailing the fundamental right of the citizens must be taken in a transparent manner and after consultations and discussions with them. Alas the government whose main achievement was bringing the RTI Act is committing itself to a major regression.

Political parties have argued that following the RTI Act and being subject to citizen’s scrutiny will destroy them.

Most of the parties do legitimate work which is within the ambit of law. Transparency will help to make their functioning better and lead to citizen’s having greater trust in them.
People don’t political parties. This needs to change for a healthy democracy. There may be undesirable practices in some of the parties, and some of them may have anti-social elements who wield great power. These would obviously not be to the liking of a majority of the political workers in these parties.

Monitoring by citizens using Right to Information would change this, and lead to improvements within the working.

There were some legitimate doubts about the impact of RTI on various organisations like the army and the police. In last eight years since its inception, the law has shown that it has been well-designed to ensure that its exemptions safeguard them from any harm to their working because of disclosure of information. Nobody has claimed that any harm has been caused to the working of these institutions. Some inconvenient truths may have been exposed, but no significant damage has been done.

We hope that better wisdom will prevail, at least amongst the opposition parties, so that a significant regression does not take place in democracy. I presume that the politicians want a better political system and respect from citizens for their parties.

They would also like to attract the best people from amongst the people. If they oppose the amendments in parliament, they will win the support of the people. We also hope the government will itself see the folly of going ahead with these amendments.

If it decides to keep its promise given less than a year back not to amend the RTI Act citizens will respect and trust it more. All those who want a better democracy and a better India will vote for: No RTI Amendment.

The writer is former information commissioner with the Central Information Commission.