Activists fear rights of anxious applicants may be curbed after the amendment.
The Centre is all set to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act to “strengthen it”, but activists are apprehensive.
The ministry for personnel, public grievances and pensions, which heads the all-powerful department of personnel and training in charge of bureaucracy, said all stake-holders would be consulted before the Act is touched.
The government wants a suitable amendment to the Act to provide for disclosure in all “non-strategic areas”. It is also examining a proposal to incorporate provisions regarding constitution of benches of the information commission and rejection of vexatious and frivolous applications.
On Chief Justice of India (CJI) KG Balakrishnan’s concern that the globally-lauded law hampers certain areas of work, such as appointment of judges through the Supreme Court (SC) collegium, a matter pending before SC, the ministry said the issue will be examined carefully.
However, the government would also determine what constitutes vexatious and frivolous applications, a key area where certain rights of anxious applicants could be curbed.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh, law minister M Veerappa Moily and the chief election commissioner have held a few meetings to discuss the concerns of the bureaucracy, judiciary and the home department.
CJI Balakrishnan recently urged the prime minister to protect the judiciary from increasingly “intrusive” queries under RTI.
He said the SC collegium made judicial appointments on the basis of constitution bench judgments. CJI is aggrieved by the chief information commissioner’s (CIC’s) direction to disclose why three meritorious chief justices of high courts were not elevated to SC, and why other three judges were appointed.
The government is also grumbling at CIC’s observation that the notings on cabinet files were open to public scrutiny.
A panel set up by CIC says the predominance of bureaucracy, such as former IAS and IPS officers, in state information commissions set up under the RTI Act is “hampering” the functioning of such quasi-judicial bodies.
It says bureaucrats remain “sympathetic” to defiant public information officers of different government departments and liberally give them opportunities to “correct mistakes” even when the mistakes are in the form of denial of information to the needy with mala fide intentions.
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