As RTI act turns 14, citizens reach for more sunshine on public spending

The Right To Information Act turned 14 on Friday. Around the same time, a recent rating of 123 countries with public information laws pegged India at sixth position, which seems to be an honourable spot, though four notches less honourable than seven years ago, when it was at #2. The law of the land seems to be near-perfect when it comes to the access and appeals it allows. But the quality of orders by information commissions is slipping, claim activists Vijay Kumbhar and Shailesh Gandhi. The Centre's inertia has held up appointments to vacant posts in the panels, further slowing down the quest for information.

Where the RTI law takes the biggest hit, though, is in the place where every other law takes a beating — implementation.

We need to have a 'private' conversation

When information is power, guess who tends to hoard it.

Private players are increasingly furnishing more and more public services — from power to transport. But they can skate around accountability citing their private nature. Even bodies that fell in administrative grey areas, like the 90-year-old Board of Control for Cricket in India — which by the way enjoyed the status of 'charitable organisation' till 2009 — have been "flying under the radar of public scrutiny and encouraged an environment of opacity and non-accountability," as the Law Commission put it on April 18.

The zeitgeist of greater transparency in delivery mechanisms of public service is solidifying. On October 1, the Central Information Commission cast its net on BCCI, saying it is answerable to the people of the country as it performs public functions.

The Board has maintained that it is transparent. Details of transactions over Rs 25 lakh are published on its website, as are the audited accounts. Yet, the national cricket federation faces over 200 cases of tax evasion.

Public utilities that partner with private players are also being sought answers from. In 2011, Mumbai-based RTI applicant Anil Galgali sought details from Reliance Energy on the electricity meter installed at his home. Power bills are known to fluctuate wildly from month to month in the city and consumers are at a loss for an explanation. But the Anil Ambani-led company, which at the time supplied power to suburban Mumbai, told him it was a private body, therefore outside RTI's purview, and discarded his application.

When the matter reached the Maharashtra State Information Commission, the panel declared parent body Reliance Infra a public authority. But the Bombay High Court, which is yet to rule on the case, disagreed that the body fit the definition of a public authority. The company is now part of Adani group after Reliance sold its stake. Company officials declined comment on the issue.

"I feel these bodies should be under RTI. The bill jumps suddenly and there is nothing we can do. Back then, the state government should have done something to ensure that they are answerable under the Act. Citizens need means to access information and argue their case," said Galgali.

Similar issues have encircled the financial capital's airport operator. RTI applicant Sanjay Shirodkar filed a plea seeking the essentials of Mumbai International Airport Limited's revenue sharing model with the government. His plea led to the Central Information Commission declaring MIAL a public authority in 2010, but the matter was challenged in Delhi High Court and awaits a decision.

"The model is called public-private partnership. By definition, it ought to be under the RTI ambit. Governments give large grants to these bodies and the taxpayer needs to know if revenue is flowing back into the government's kitty. This is the way for people to get this information," said Shirodkar.

Delhi-based Subhash Chandra Agarwal, who was an intervenor in the BCCI case, extends the logic to decisions made about remunerations within such bodies. "BCCI is all about public money and government grants. So much money is awarded as salary and pension to cricketers. We are creating class distinction in the society. Even the Tirupati temple trust gets public money. Should the priests there be showered with all money?"

His fellow activist Reepak Kansal takes the quest for information a step further. Why can't the sports ministry release information on cricket, he asks. "Whether BCCI is under RTI ambit or not, the Ministry of Sports should have the information. I am willing to take this matter to court," said Kansal, whose wife Geeta Rani filed the RTI application which led to BCCI being declared a public body.

Activists in Gujarat say the change is here, but in spurts. "Private companies in the state providing public services are now releasing information under RTI if the service was set up on a public-private partnership basis," said Ajay Jangid.

In fact, he claimed, it is more difficult to dig out information from companies in which the government has a majority stake.

"In 2016, I had sought information from Gujarat Industries Power Company Ltd about coal usage, power generation and costs. But the company refused it on the grounds that it wasn't under the RTI blanket. Even state information commission GIC ruled in its favour," said Jangid, who moved the high court in 2017 against the two bodies. "All I want to know is, how does a government-owned company fall outside RTI purview," Jangid said.

He claimed that Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers and Chemical Ltd, Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd and Gujarat State Petronet Ltd have all refused disclosure on the same grounds.

The claims beg a host of questions. Are the various governments really interested in promoting transparency? And why are political parties pretending that they are not bound by the transparency laws?

"After all, the lack of political will is exposed when parties refuse to comply with RTI provisions, and also hold back from challenging CIC order which declares them public bodies," said Venkatesh Nayak, programme coordinator at Delhi-based information rights body Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.

Pulling The Devil Out Of The Details

Grass roots sprout

While the transparency Act may not have stretched as far as politics, it is still shining the light for those who are determined to make the administration do its job.

When Gujarat's Balbhadrasinh Parmar filed an RTI plea with Moodi taluka development officer (TDO) in 2012 to find out the status of roads to be laid in his village, Navaniya, in Surendranagar district, a reply eluded him.

Nevertheless, the path materialised within two-and-a-half months of his plea.

"At the time, the panchayat had Congress members, and the taluka was run by BJP . So while the funds for roads got sanctioned, the local body did not execute the project," said Parmar, whose wife was the village's deputy sarpanch.

The couple said a farmer lost his wife while she was in labour because an ambulance did not reach her on time, as the village had been denied development because of political pettiness.

"I was not concerned with who was in power. It was the administration's job to get the work done. So I filed an RTI seeking information about funds sanctioned, released, work done, and expenses incurred for the road," said Parmar.

Soon, he got a call from the TDO seeking to know why he had sought the information. "I said because the roads hadn't been built. They didn't reply to my query but the road began to be built," said Parmar. He discovered that other issues raised by him were being addressed just after seeking information.

Bhoop Singh, a resident of Savitri Nagar in Delhi, had a similar experience. The social welfare department wouldn't approve his pension but an RTI query did the job. All at once, he got the Rs 18,000 pension, for 12 months. Fellow citizen Nirmala had been denied compensation under Laadli Scheme, but Rs 23,000 was transferred to her daughter's account after her first appeal.

Maharashtra's Anis Khan employed the Act to get his son's mark sheets. The State Board of Technical Education (MSBTE) declined to provide him copies of answer sheets after he requested reassessment. Khan approached the state commission, which ordered that the mark sheets be provided to him. On top of that, the MSBTE was asked to revisit its rules so students can easily get reassessed mark sheets.

Slipping through the gaps

The biggest hurdles to release of information, experts say, is a deep-seated cultuire of opacity. While citizens proactively push for easier ways to seek information, governments, commissions and political parties resist
the move.

Bhaskar Prabhu, an RTI activist from Mumbai, said, "First, they don't provide information. Then, they call those seeking it blackmailers. Do you know 73 have been killed for asking the right questions? Information commissioners haven't shown a spirit of transparency, which is also damaging the functioning of the Act."

Most commissions including the central one have at least one vacancy. Some lie empty for years. "Vacancies inflate pendancy of appeals. In cases of pro-transparency orders, courts have set them aside and final decisions are pending," said Shailesh Gandhi, who was once the central information commissioner.

"I lost my job while seeking transparency in appointments of teachers," said Dr Rajender K Singla, a Chandigarh-based RTI activist. Professor Anil Kumar, also from Chanidgarh, said the DAV College Managing Committee from which he was seeking transparency approached court to restrain him from filing an RTI query. "I was barred by court, but I continued my fight. The information commission has now started hearing my appeals again," said Kumar.

Information is furnished only when establishments suspect the applicant would raise Cain if they are denied details they seek. "The general public doesn't get it so easily," said Vijay Kumbhar, an activist from Pune. "In 90 per cent of the cases, there's no reply to an appeal," said Mukesh, who represents Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan (MKSS), which started the RTI movement in Rajasthan. Gujarat activists say that three out of 10 applicants get information. "Besides, only 10 per cent information is proactively disclosed," said Pankti Jog of Mahiti Adhikar Pahel.

The Act is going through a difficult time. The governments are doing little to promote transparency and are still into the culture of secrecy, said Nayak of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. To boot, the Centre wants to push through amendments in the RTI Act that allow it more control over tenure and salaries of information commissioners.

Activists are dreading a certain law which may result in the instant death of the Act. An amendment to the RTI Act proposed through Data Protection Bill would pit privacy of personal data against public interest, if it goes through.
Currently, personal information can be furnished if public interest is overwhelming. But what the Bill purports to propose is that information can be denied if personal harm outweighs public interest.

"It is just the opposite of the transparency advocated by the RTI Act. There are provisions that make giving such data a punishable offence. This will sound the death knell to the Act because every other piece of information could be denied by misusing this logic," said Vijay Kumbhar, Pune-based activist.

"As far as RTI Act is concerned, the exemption the draft Bill proposes goes against the philosophy on which the RTI Act allows certain exemptions," said Nayak.

The right to public information needs to be defended as fiercely as privacy of data, activists say, or else, we'd be in the dark.

(Inputs by Ashutosh M Shukla, Smitha R, Sumit Khanna, Chhavi Bhatia,Chander Shekhar Luthra & Abhishek Tiwari; edited by Manavi Deopura)