Right to Information Act, 2005

Right to Information Act, 2005
It is an act to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities, in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority, the constitution of a Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
Citation Act No. 22 of 2005
Territorial extent Whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir
Enacted by Parliament of India
Date enacted 15-June-2005
Date assented to 22-June-2005
Date commenced

12-October-2005

First RTI application submitted by Shahid Raza Burney to a police station in Pune on 12 October 2005
Status: In force
A receipt for payment of fee for collecting information under RTI act

Right to Information (RTI) is an Act of the Parliament of India to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens and replaces the erstwhile Freedom of information Act, 2002. Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen of India may request information from a "public authority" (a body of Government or "instrumentality of State") which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerise their records for wide dissemination and to proactively certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally.

This law was passed by Parliament on 15 June 2005 and came fully into force on 12 October 2005. The first application was given to a Pune police station. Information disclosure in India was restricted by the Official Secrets Act 1923 and various other special laws, which the new RTI Act relaxes. It codifies a fundamental right of citizens.

Scope

The Act covers the whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir, where J&K Right to Information Act is in force. It covers all constitutional authorities, including the executive, legislature and judiciary; any institution or body established or constituted by an act of Parliament or a state legislature. It is also defined in the Act that bodies or authorities established or constituted by order or notification of appropriate government including bodies "owned, controlled or substantially financed" by government, or non-Government organizations "substantially financed, directly or indirectly by funds"

Private bodies

Private bodies are not within the Act's ambit directly. In a decision of Sarbjit roy vs Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission,[1] the Central Information Commission also reaffirmed that privatised public utility companies fall within the purview of RTI.[2] As of 2014, private institutions and NGOs receiving over 95% of their infrastructure funds from the government come under the Act.[3] Right to Information Act 2005 mandates timely response to citizen requests for government information. It is an initiative taken by Department of Personnel and Training, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions to provide a RTI Portal Gateway to the citizens for quick search of information on the details of first Appellate Authorities, PIOs etc. amongst others, besides access to RTI related information / disclosures published on the web by various Public Authorities under the Government of India as well as the State Governments.

Political parties

The Central Information Commission (CIC), consisting of Satyanand Mishra, M.L. Sharma and Annapurna Dixit, has held that the political parties are public authorities and are answerable to citizens under the RTI Act. The CIC, a quasi-judicial body, has said that six national parties - Congress, BJP, NCP, CPI(M), CPI and BSP and BJD - has been substantially funded indirectly by the Central Government and have the character of public authorities under the RTI Act as they perform public functions[4][5] In August 2013 the government introduced a Right To Information (Amendment) Bill which would remove political parties from the scope of the law.[6] In September 2013 the Bill was deferred to the Winter Session of Parliament.[7] In December 2013 the Standing Committee on Law and Personnel said in its report tabled in Parliament.[8]

Right to Information(RTI Act 2005) Implementations, Controversies, and Digital India.

The Right to information in India has been mired with controversies ranging from their use in political battles [9] asking opponent degrees, or cases of blatant refusals to provide information[10] on high profile projects to allegations of misuse by civil society.[11]

The Right to information in India is governed by two major bodies viz.

Central Information Commission (CIC)[12] – Chief Information commissioner who heads all the central departments and ministries- with their own public Information officers (PIO)s. CICs are directly under the President of India.

State Information Commissions-State Public Information Officers or SPIOs – Heading over all the state department and ministries the SPIO office is directly under the State Governor.

State and Central Information Commissions are independent bodies and Central Information Commission has no jurisdiction[12] over the State Information Commission.

Digital Right to Information System

Though there is a push in India on digital governance, Right to Information has seen a neglect even after 11 years of its enactment.

A recent research on ballotboxIndia [13] outlines that thought central ministries are covered by a single Digital window to file Right to Information requests with integrated payment gateways, and tracking mechanism. None of the states have yet came forward to implement their versions or use the existing Right to Information Digital Infrastructure.

The research report[13] covering 29 states and union territories also highlights the responses from the SPIOs (State Public Information Officers).

Researchers in the study focussed on the Digital implementation and asked about plans or timeline to provide such facility. 64% State Public Information failed to respond. Rest of them merely took cognizance without any hard timelines.

The research also covers in details- the difficulty in filing manual Right to Information requests with the states with delays ranging many months of wait time and various follow ups and rejections.[14]

Every state in India has different rules and fee structures to file an application through registered post without any tracking mechanism as covered in details in the report.[13] Which puts Right to Information in India riddled with inefficiencies.

Activism around an efficient Right to Information

Researchers and Activists have been proposing changes to make the process easier, efficient and meaningful. One of it demands state and central information systems under one Digital System to streamline information flow and provide proactive information backed by streamlined mandatory reporting.

Right to Information (RTI Act 2005) - One RTI campaign flyer started by ballotboxIndia researchers after doing a survey with 28 states SPIOs and Central CIC.

The Right to information(RTI Act 2005) was touted as one law which will bring in transparency and eradicate corruption by civil society direct involvement. Failure to implement it in a thoroughly and efficiently has led to rough loss estimate of $245 million yearly as per one estimate.[13]

India being a federal state has many items in concurrent list and projects have multiple departments working on them, and sometimes projects are moved from one department to another.

With Central and State information commissions working in such a disconnect, and manual transfers of the request for information between departments lead to big delays, confusion, and loss of traceability.

It not only denies timely information, creates high barriers to information only a few with very strong motivations and means can cross, but puts a common citizen at the risk by exposing them directly to the departments and agencies which they are trying to find information on.

Intellectual Property Rights and Right to Information (RTI Act 2005).

Many civil society members have recently alleged the subversion of the right to information Act by the invocation of Intellectual Property rights argument by the government agencies from time to time.

Most notable are

Fees

A citizen who desires to seek some information from a public authority is required to send, along with the application (a Postal order or DD (Demand draft) or a bankers cheque) payable to the Accounts Officer of the public authority as fee prescribed for seeking information. If the person is from a disadvantaged community, he/she need not pay.

The applicant may also be required to pay further fee towards the cost of providing the information, details of which shall be intimated to the applicant by the PIO as prescribed by the RTI ACT[16]

See also

  1. ↑ http://www.rti.india.gov.in/cic_decisions/Decision_30112006_12.pdf
  2. ↑ http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-10-03/news/30238465_1_rti-act-public-information-officer-pio. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ↑ Nayak, N. Dinesh. "Private institutions, NGOs now come under RTI Act: Information Commissioner". thehindu.com.
  4. ↑ PTI. "Khurshid sounds warning note on R.T.I ruling". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 10 June 2013. Retrieved 4 June 2013.
  5. ↑ PTI. "Political parties under RTI: Congress rejects CIC order". The Hindu Newspaper. Archived from the original on 27 October 2013. Retrieved 4 June 2013.
  6. ↑ Subrahmaniam, Vidya (12 August 2013). "First-ever amendment to historic RTI Act tabled in Lok Sabha". The Hindu. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
  7. ↑ "Bill to amend RTI Act deferred to Winter Session". thehindubusinessline.com. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  8. ↑ "Parliament panel backs Bill to keep parties out of RTI". Press Trust of India
  9. ↑ "PM Modi degree issue: HC stays CIC order on 1978 DU records". The Indian Express. 2017-01-24. Retrieved 2017-02-11.
  10. 1 2 "Gomti River front Development - Irrigation Department Denied Information". Gomti River front Development - Irrigation Department Denied Information. 2016-12-09. Retrieved 2017-02-11.
  11. ↑ Gandhi, Shailesh. "Right to information is misused, but those who do so make up less than 5% of total applicants". Scroll.in. Retrieved 2017-02-11.
  12. 1 2 "FAQ | Central Information Commission". cic.gov.in. Retrieved 2017-02-11.
  13. 1 2 3 4 "Right to information (RTI Act 2005) India - One Nation #OneRTI". BallotBoxIndia. Retrieved 2017-02-11.
  14. ↑ "Gomti Riverfront Development - Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) officially transferred the application of request on Gomti River Front Development DPR and EIA to the Irrigation Department". Gomti Riverfront Development - Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) officially transferred the application of request on Gomti River Front Development DPR and EIA to the Irrigation Department. 2016-09-15. Retrieved 2017-02-11.
  15. ↑ "RBI's refusal to share details under RTI is sheer arrogance, says activist Shailesh Gandhi". Firstpost. 2016-12-31. Retrieved 2017-02-11.
  16. ↑ http://rti.gov.in/RTICorner/Guide_2013-issue.pdf
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