As the RTI Act completes six years, how does the entire story look in retrospect and what’s the future that we wish to shape for it.

Call it a lack of good faith or perhaps a misdirected agenda, but a landmark legislation that the UPA has been considerably responsible for, is under attack for obvious reasons. As the RTI Act completes six years, how does the entire story look in retrospect and what’s the future that we wish to shape for it. 

 

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.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri 
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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