14th Anniversary of Right To Information

Context: An important instrument of participatory democracy-Right To Information (RTI) has marked its 14th anniversary on 12th October 2019.

• To mark the occasion, the ‘Report Card on the Performance of Information Commissions in India’ has been released by the NGOs, Satark Nagrik Sangathan and the Centre for Equity Studies.

Relevance: 

GS-2 Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.

GS-4 Probity in Governance: Concept of public service; Philosophical basis of governance and probity; Information sharing and transparency in government, Right to Information 

Key Findings of the Report Card on the Performance of Information Commissions in India

• Achievements

  • RTI is one of the landmark acts which has led to a significant boost in accountability of the govt towards the people.

    • It has given ordinary citizens the confidence and the right to ask questions to the government authorities.

  • RTI ensured the maintenance and publication of public records.

    • Section 4 of the RTI Act makes it a duty of public authorities to maintain records for easy access

  • It also ensured transparency as well as accountability between citizens and public authorities.

    • Recently, the government of Rajasthan has launched Jan Soochna Portal (JSP), on the lines of Right to Information Act (RTI).

  • RTI emphasizes citizen centric approach.

  • It assured information accessibility at every level of public governance.

  • According to estimates, nearly 60 lakh applications are being filed every year.

• Challenges

  • Government officials face hardly any punishment for violating the law by denying applicants legitimate information.

    • It destroys the basic framework of incentives and disincentives built into the RTI Act.

  • State and Central Information Commissions, which are the courts of appeal under the RTI Act, failed to impose penalties in about 97% of the cases where violations took place.

    • The State Commissions of Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, Mizoram and Tripura did not impose penalties in any cases at all.

  • The commissions also have the power to recommend disciplinary action against officials for persistent violations of the RTI Act.

    • Only 10 states invoked these powers.

  • Many Information Commissions are non-functional or are functioning at reduced capacity as the posts of commissioners, including that of the chief information commissioner are vacant.

    • The State Information Commission(SIC) of the state of Andhra Pradesh is yet to become functional.

    • The State Information Commission of West Bengal is currently functioning with just two commissioners.

    • The Chief Information Commissioner of Maharashtra retired in April 2017 and the government is yet to appoint a new Chief

  • The central, as well as state commissions, have an increasing workload, which is leading to huge pendency of cases.

    • Any new appeal to the Central Information Commission (CIC) would have to wait more than one-and-a-half years for resolution.