Sanjog Maheshwari
The Right to Information Act that was enacted in June 2005 and came into force on October 12 of the same year, was welcomed by the people with unprecedented enthusiasm. One could not agree more with RTI activist and Magsaysay Award winner Arvind Kejriwal when he described it as the most powerful tool to combat corruption which is eating away at the vitals of every democratic institution in our country. It was then that this little piece of legislation raised people's hopes and expectations sky-high.
However, the initial flush of applications for information under the Act so rattled entrenched vested interests and the foot-dragging officials in our bureaucratic set-up that they lost no time to frustrate the infant RTI law by persuading the willing politicians to approve of a dubious amendment to the by which file-notings and Cabinet papers would be exempted from disclosure. The move, brought about within a year of passing the Act, was opposed tooth and nail by every right-minded person. Even Mr Kejriwal, one of the five Central Information Commissioners appointed under the Act, wrote to the Prime Minister calling the decision "the last desperate attempt on the part of some vested interests within the Government to protect their identities from being exposed".
Under the tremendous pressure exerted, the Government was forced to lay to rest the proposed amendment and thus the first attempt on the life of the Act was thwarted and the people heaved a sigh of relief.
However, not to take all this lying down, vested interests kept trying to cripple this legislation and render it ineffective by several ingenious ways. The bureaucracy, already pastmasters in dodging inconvenient queries and disowning responsibility, further perfected its skills. As a result, today an abysmally low number of bureaucrats actually get caught or penalised under the Act. To make matters worse, the Central Information Commission (Management) Regulations 2007 has prescribes a very complex, cumbersome and costly procedure for filing the second appeal to the Central Information Commission.
All such moves to prevent people from getting the information they want is undemocratic and needs to be vehemently opposed and reversed.
However, the initial flush of applications for information under the Act so rattled entrenched vested interests and the foot-dragging officials in our bureaucratic set-up that they lost no time to frustrate the infant RTI law by persuading the willing politicians to approve of a dubious amendment to the by which file-notings and Cabinet papers would be exempted from disclosure. The move, brought about within a year of passing the Act, was opposed tooth and nail by every right-minded person. Even Mr Kejriwal, one of the five Central Information Commissioners appointed under the Act, wrote to the Prime Minister calling the decision "the last desperate attempt on the part of some vested interests within the Government to protect their identities from being exposed".
Under the tremendous pressure exerted, the Government was forced to lay to rest the proposed amendment and thus the first attempt on the life of the Act was thwarted and the people heaved a sigh of relief.
However, not to take all this lying down, vested interests kept trying to cripple this legislation and render it ineffective by several ingenious ways. The bureaucracy, already pastmasters in dodging inconvenient queries and disowning responsibility, further perfected its skills. As a result, today an abysmally low number of bureaucrats actually get caught or penalised under the Act. To make matters worse, the Central Information Commission (Management) Regulations 2007 has prescribes a very complex, cumbersome and costly procedure for filing the second appeal to the Central Information Commission.
All such moves to prevent people from getting the information they want is undemocratic and needs to be vehemently opposed and reversed.
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