Thankfully, the government has given in to the pressure from various quarters and has dropped, at least for the time being, its plans to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act in such a way as to exclude the notings of officers except on "development and social issues". As most critics pointed out, it would be difficult to categorise various issues of national import into these categories. So, for instance, it is only through the use of the RTI that citizens can get to know what went into the government's decision to ignore the finance ministry's concerns on the tax losses that will result from the proliferation of special economic zones. While it could be argued that there is a "development" angle to this issue, since government taxes fund development, the same logic cannot be used to figure out what went in to the government's decision to return Anil Agarwal's cheque for the remaining stake in Balco, and what various departments had to say on the subject. | |
| There is a legitimate case for excluding file notings on personnel matters, and on matters concerning national security, as well as matters still under the government's consideration. The larger problem, however, is that the RTI does not appear to be working, even in its original form. For instance, the department of personnel and training's website still says that file notings cannot be disclosed, and when the Central Information Commission directed it to remove the notings, the department refused to do so, saying that it had not been given a proper hearing in the matter before the CIC made its ruling! Arun Jaitley's experience with the RTI, where he asked for papers relating to Ottavio Quattrocchi and the Bofors case, is also well-known, for he was told that "a large number of files relating to this case are housed in two large rooms in safe cupboards. Any attempt to compile voluminous information will disproportionately divert public resources". And when a correspondent with this newspaper filed an RTI appeal for some letters exchanged between UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the government, no information has been provided for two months even though the law sets a time limit of a month for providing information""this is especially ironic as it was Mrs Gandhi who was instrumental in making the RTI a reality, and it is her insistence that is reportedly behind the scuttling of the move to restrict file notings. |
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| In another appeal on individuals who were issued diplomatic passports during a specific period, the official reply gave the guidelines for issuing such passports, but not the names of those issued such passports. The irony in all these cases is that it is not just file notings that are being asked for, but the information is still not being made available for one reason or the other. It is always possible that RTI information is being made to citizens in a host of small cases, such as the funds used to build a road or in laying a water pipe, but the real test of the RTI is when it delivers in high-profile cases. So far, the record is very poor. |
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