PEOPLE AND THEIR PROBLEMS
New Delhi, 15 October 2005
Right To
Information Act
CITIZENS ARE
EMPOWERED
By T.D. Jagadesan
A simple yet powerful example of the use of Right to
Information (RTI) is of a slum dweller who applied for a new ration card. He was told he would have to give a bribe of
Rs. 2,000 to obtain it. A friend, an
RTI-empowered citizen smiled and just went ahead and applied for the ration
card without meeting the demand. His
neighbours warned him he would never get his ration card. They also told him how he would now have to
keep visiting the rationing office.
Some well-meaning friends praised him for being
courageous. They suggested he should
approach some non-governmental organization to take up his case. He had decided to become an enforcer of good
governance. Some weeks later he applied
for information under the RTI.
Using the simple format with an application fee of Rs. 10,
he delivered it to the Public Information Officer of the Food and Supply
Office. He had asked up to which date
applications for ration cards had been cleared and the daily progress report of
his application.
This shook the officials, since they would have to
acknowledge in writing that they had given ration cards to others who had applied
after him, which would be a conclusive evidence that they had no justification
for delaying his card. Happy ending: the
ration card was given to him immediately.
No bribes, no endless visits. Our
citizen was able to use the might of the Right to Information. This story has been repeated a thousand times
to get a road repaired, an electricity connection and admissions to educational
institutions.
The Right to Information is derived from our fundamental
right of expression under Article 19. If
we do not have information on how our Government and public institutions
function, we cannot express any informed opinion on it. This has been accepted by various Supreme
Court judgments since 1977. All of us accept
that the freedom of the Press is an essential element for a democracy.
Why is the freedom of the media considered one of the
essential features of a democracy?
Democracy revolves round the basic idea of citizens being at the centre
of the governance: rule of the people.
We need to define the importance of the concept of freedom of the Press
from this fundamental premise.
Justice Mathew, it will be recalled, ruled in the Raj Narain
case that “in a Government of responsibility like ours, where all the agents of
the public must be responsible for their conduct, there can be but few
secrets. The people of this country have
a right to know every public act, everything that is done in a public way by
their public functionaries. They are
entitled to know the particulars of every public transaction in all its
bearing. Their right to know, which is
derived from the concept of freedom of speech, though not absolute, is a factor
which should make one wary when secrecy is claimed for transactions which can
at any rate have no repercussion on public security.”
Nine States in India have in operation the Right
to Information Act. Parliament passed
this as Act in May this year. It became
operational across the country on October 12.
It promises to be a single piece of legislation that can result in the
victory of participatory democracy.
The right to Information Act is a codification of this
important right of citizens. The right
has existed since the time India
became a republic, but was difficult to enforce without going to court. The Act and its rules define a format for
requisitioning information, in a time frame within which information must be
provided (30 days). Method of giving the
information, some charges for applying, and some exemptions. The principle is that charges should be
minimum – more as a token.
They are not at all representative of the costs that may be
incurred. Citizens can ask for
information by getting Xerox copies of documents, permissions, policies, and
decisions. All administrative offices of
public authorities have to appoint “Public Information Officers (PIO). Citizens can apply information to the PIO of
the office concerned.
If it is not provided or is refused, the citizen can go to
an Appellate Authority who would be an official in the same department, senior
to the PIO. If this too does not produce
a satisfactory result, one can appeal to the State or Central Information
Commissioner, an independent Constitutional Authority being established under
the Act.
One of the major reasons for the success of the Maharashtra and Delhi Acts is that there is a provision
for penalising the PIO in case he does not give the information within the
mandated period. The Legislation, which
has drawn a lot of inspiration from The Maharashtra Act, also provides for a
penalty for delay on the PIO at a rate of Rs.250 a day. There is also provision for disciplinary
action against recalcitrant PIOs in some cases.
Thus, the Right to Information provides for a time bound
defined process for citizens to access information about all actions taken by
public authorities. The penal provisions
are the real teeth of the Act, which ensure that the PIO does not treat
citizens’ demands for information in a cavalier manner.
It has been possible to get a Commission report to be made
public, using the RTI. In another case,
a police Inspector had raped a minor and was reinstated in service within five
months: Using the RTI as a pressure
device resulted in the Inspector being dismissed from service. In another instance, proof has been obtained
about political interference in police transfers.
The major fraud of looting money meant for providing
livelihood under the Employment Guarantee Scheme (ESG) has been going on for
years. Presently, a campaign has been
initiated in Maharashtra to get citizens
across the State to ask for EGS roll using the RTI and then auditing them with
people’s participation. The primary
power of the RTI is the fact it empowers individual citizens to requisition
information.
Hence, without necessarily forming pressure groups or
associations, it puts power directly into the hands of the foundation of
democracy-the citizens. There will
certainly be an attempt to subvert this revolutionary right by the ruling
coterie, since it strikes at the basics of their power.
This can easily be countered, if enough citizens use the
Act. Citizens can use the Right from
their own houses and usually it does not take more than about two hours to make
an RTI application. A few million
applications across the country by concerned citizens on issues that interest
them will bring a major change in India and be a determined move
towards the Swaraj we desire.
There is a great need to spread the usage of this
countrywide, so that transparency and good governance triumph. We now have the power; we only need to use
it. It is simple to use, and the
benefits are immense.---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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