Amending RTI won’t help govt, judiciary

The genesis of the government becoming allergic to the existing Right to Information (RTI) Act can be traced to the day when the Central Information Commission took head-on the ministry of personnel, which is in charge of the entire senior bureaucracy of the country.

It wouldn’t be correct to say that the Centre’s zeal in changing the laudable law has been tailored by a series of judgments that has brought the superior judiciary within the purview of this transparency and accountability-centric legislation.

No doubt, the government has gained strength with the superior judiciary. The judiciary had stayed put on its ivory tower for too long. But it started fumbling when it was asked to disclose vital information like selection process of judges, assets of the judges and communication between the Chief Justice of India with other functionaries who are squarely covered by RTI.

That UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had shown her dislike for the government’s obduracy in amending the law in order to suit the needs of secrecy-loving bureaucracy and judiciary is a matter of satisfaction for the concerned citizens.

The symptoms of RTI becoming an eyesore for the government started in December 2008 when CIC indicted the weighty cabinet secretary (CS) and the department of personnel and training (DoPT) for using dilatory tactics in imparting information.

“No level in government is higher than the provisions of an RTI Act passed by parliament,” the CIC had warned. “The commission views the attitude of the DoPT and CS with some concern as they not only made wrong statements… but had taken recourse to dilatory tactics in providing the information… In fact, the issue boils down to an authority like the Cabinet Secretariat going against the sanctity of the very Act itself,” it had added.

The government’s insistence on protecting itself and superior judiciary from the transparency law makes it a suspect in everyone’s eyes.