Double-edged wonder

If you happened to listen to the political masters of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government as the Anna movement gripped the whole country, one of the most common grounds for the defence cited to prove the government’s commitment to curb corruption was that the people should remember that it was this government that gave India the landmark Right To Information (RTI) legislation. Jump to the present and even that immensely credible logic seems to lose some and shine.

On a day when the government should have ideally been celebrating the growing impact of RTI in improving governance, it’s fighting a turf war. Addressing the Convention of Information Commissioners on the occasion of the RTI completing six years of enactment, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shot down another self goal. “Even as we recognise and celebrate the efficacy and the effectiveness of the Right to Information Act, we must take a critical look at it. There are concerns that need to be discussed and addressed honestly,” he said, adding that the RTI was now being more extensively and effectively used to bring into public gaze many areas of the work of public authorities ‘which would otherwise remain hidden from public gaze’. He also said that the power and usefulness of the act were being felt more today than ever before.

But the PM’s remarks that day could not be mistaken for encouragement and have in fact added more ambiguity in the minds of citizens as well as public authorities. On one hand, the PM lauded the RTI for bringing irregularities into public gaze which otherwise would not have happened. On the other, he created a small opening for dilutions to the same. “RTI is a powerful tool. We wish to make it a more effective instrument for ensuring transparency and accountability in administration... the RTI should not impede the working of governance,” he said.

As discouraging as this may sound, demands to potentially dilute the provisions of the RTI existed even before it became a legislation. In July 2006, soon after being passed in Parliament, the government had decided that the RTI Act was not something worth handling. The cabinet secretariat had already passed amendments that they wanted to introduce in Parliament. However, the civil society began demonstrating and the government had to backtrack. At that time, three more exemption clauses were to be added to the existing list of 10. File notings was one of the exemptions. In the definition of information, the government said that file notings was not information and the role of the commission was to be made recommendatory.

Again in 2009, there was a similar call by none other than the President in her first address to the parliament. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) took it forward but as pressure mounted, the government again backtracked. Civil society activists will readily point out how tough it has been to keep the provisions of the RTI Act intact in letter and spirit since the very beginning.

In a way, the PM’s statements should not come as a shock. After all, it is the RTI that has left the Congress on slippery track on more occasions than one. The most recent addition to this list was a note prepared by the Finance Ministry in March this year that faulted Home Minister P. Chidambaram for not exercising his complete powers as Finance Minister in 2008 to enforce an auction of valuable spectrum.

The absence of that auction is said to be one of the major catalysts of the telecom scam, believed to be India’s largest swindle till date. Chidambaram was even asked to resign by the Opposition on the basis of the Finance ministry’s note. After a week-long political storm, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee ‘clarified’ that different ministries had contributed to the note and that he did not agree with all its inferences.

However, his other colleagues who have been advocating for a weaker RTI with the reasoning that RTI hampers the ‘deliberative process’ of the government have found support with the PM. Soon after the PM’s statements calling for a critical look into the Act, Corporate Affairs minister Veerappa Moily said that certain ‘inbuilt weaknesses’ in the RTI Act need to be addressed and that the bureaucracy should know how to meet the challenges posed by it – such as ‘how to write in a file’.

He reiterated that there was no intention to amend the Act. Law Minister Salman Khurshid was more diplomatic in his praise for RTI and said that there was no plan to revisit its provisions to his knowledge. As reassuring that these assurances might seem, things have already started moving in the background. In a fresh development, the government is learnt to have framed new guidelines for addressing RTI applications. As per reliable sources, all RTI replies prepared by junior officers will now have to be vetted by a senior officer, preferably of the Joint Secretary rank, before they are sent to the applicant. Among the changes considered, sources say that RTI replies will have to be brief and will not be allowed to reveal much. Exceptions from under the ambit of the RTI have also been a point of discussion. The Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Aviation Research Centre, Narcotics Control Bureau and the all India paramilitary forces were already out of the ambit of RTI. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), National Investigation Agency (NIA) and National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) are the latest entrants.

Their involvement with crucial and sensitive matters of paramount importance to national security has been cited as the base for keeping them out of the ambit of RTI and public scrutiny. However, in the case of CBI, an interesting revelation has been made, again through an RTI. Documents sourced through an RTI application by activist Subhash Agrawal show that the government gave the CBI more immunity from the RTI Act than what the agency itself had originally sought. The issue of how much immunity the CBI should get was bounced between several government departments, committees and officials that questioned the agency’s demand of partial immunity, all of which ended up with it being kept completely outside RTI. On June 8 this year, Dr. Manmohan Singh put his seal of approval on the decision.

While public support for RTI has been growing, diluting or diminishing the impact of this legislation by the political class looks unlikely. However, does that safeguard the RTI from all possible threats? Probably not. Information Commissioner at the Central Information Commission (CIC) Shailesh Gandhi says the biggest threat to RTI comes not from the political class, but from the judiciary and the Information Commission itself. “The central commission today has a pendency of over 20,000 appeals and complaints, which means an average backlog of over 10 months. If it continues like this, in the next 3 years we might see a backlog of two to three years. Orissa, Maharashtra, UP, everywhere... the pendencies are slowly creeping up.” In 2010-11, around 2 million RTI appeals were made to Central and State governments. The number is expected to surge to over 10 million in another five years. That ultimately could imply that this will end up like the judiciary that every common man dreads. Government officials will dread it too at such a juncture, even if they genuinely want to be transparent.

Six years after the Act was passed, the government hasn’t put its files on the web, a promise made in the act itself. When accountability is still a pipedream, matters get worse when the citizens don’t really demand it either. When asked about their views on the reservations of the government on the RTI, activists reply in the negative, and only cite the lack of accountability and punitive action as stumbling blocks. However, they are not concerned about the government meddling with the act any time soon. Prominent social activist and co-convenor of the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI) Nikhil Dey says, “As far as the threat from the political class goes, I don’t think it is that big a worry. With the kind of community support that RTI has garnered over the years, it will not be easy for the government to make amendments.”

There is no doubt that the RTI has brought this government on its knees on more occasions than one. Embarrassments have been huge and the government’s anger against the impact of this legislation is understandable.

But then, the fact is that this was the very legislation which the UPA had touted as one of the finest in the country so far – which explains the government’s contradictions and ambiguity on how to deal with a law that has gone against it. The fact is that there is no turning back really. The real debate therefore has to be on how to strengthen the infrastructure that supports the RTI and also ensure that there is accountability from public officials at all levels right to the top. And just going after the government won’t work. As citizens of this country, Indians have to ensure that they participate in this debate and help take it to a logical conclusion. At the same time, use the Act’s powers to the maximum extent to ensure that the common man – and the politico – realises this Act is here to stay.