Date: 17/12/2022

Relevance: GS-2: Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.

Key Phrases: Provisions of the Right To Information (RTI) Act , Challenges in Implementation of the RTI Act, Transparency in Governance, Accountability fixing, RTI reforms, RTI Act 2005, Public Information Officer, Central Information Commission.

Context:

• It’s been more than 15 years since the Right to Information (RTI) Act was enacted.
• The present time calls for a review of the Act and its various aspects including advantages, challenges among others in ensuring transparency and accountability in governance.

Is the RTI Act fulfilling its purpose?

• The RTI Act empowers people because it puts an obligation on the government to respond to them in a time-bound manner.
• It has tilted the balance of power in favour of common people as they can hold the government accountable.
• People are extensively using the RTI Act to obtain information on rights and entitlements such as their rations, pensions, and medicines in hospitals or education in schools.
• People can hold high offices accountable and get information on a wide range of subjects including expenditure details of taxpayers’ money.
• People have been tracking and exposing scams such as the Commonwealth Games and Vyapam scams.
• It has been able to expose human rights violations, and then force accountability in those cases.

Rising backlogs is a concern

• According to a report by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan, the backlog of appeals or complaints is steadily increasing in commissions every year.
• According to the data received from 26 Information Commissions the number of appeals and complaints pending in 2019 was 2,18,347.
• This number climbed up to 2,33,384 and in 2021 the number was 2,86,325 with data from 26 commissions and in 2022, it was 3,14,323.
• The highest number of pending cases was in Maharashtra at 99,722 followed by Uttar Pradesh at 44,482, Karnataka at 30,358, the Central Information Commission at 26,724 and Bihar at 21,346.

There are many issues with the RTI framework

• Lack of awareness
  • The major impediment is the lack of awareness of the law and lack of widespread adoption.
• Non-functionality of information commissions across the country
  • The Satark Nagrik Sangathan report says two out of 29 information commissions across the country are completely defunct.
  • Jharkhand and Tripura have been completely defunct for 29 months and 15 months respectively.
  • Presently 4 of 26 commissions are working without the Information Commissioners at the moment.
• Issues of vacancies and understaffing
  • According to a report by the Transparency International, one-fourth of Information Commissioner posts are vacant and there are only 5% (only 8) women Information Commissioners in the country.
  • Out of a total 165 posts of Information Commissioners, 42 are vacant, including two Chief State Information Commissioners.
• Lack of Imposing of penalties
  • An analysis of penalties imposed shows that the commissions did not impose penalties in 95% of the cases where penalties were potentially imposable.
• Appeals are not addressed
  • The report says that till now more than 4.2 crore RTIs have been filed and 26 lakh second appeals are there before the commissions.
  • Over 32,000 RTI appeals are pending with the Central Information Commission.
• Lack of digitization
  • The entire system is in dire need of digitisation.
  • Only 11 information commissions out of 29 provide e-filing facility for RTI applications or appeals, but only five are functional.
• Major institutions such as political parties and judiciary have kept themselves out of the RTI investigation and similarly the media is also out of ambit of the RTI Act.

Challenges in Implementation

• Non-compliance in proactive disclosure by public authorities
• Hostile approach of Public Information Officers (PIOs) towards citizens and misinterpreting provisions of the Right to Information (RTI) Act to conceal information.
• Lack of clarity on what public interest is and right to privacy
• Lack of political will and poor infrastructure
• Rejection of information requests made by active citizens on important matters of public importance
• Covert means of attacks and threats against RTI activists and applicants to suppress their voices

Way Forward

• Remove the existing impediments
  • There is a need to remove long waiting time for disposal, tardy disposal rates and the lack of transparency in their functioning.
  • Then only the Right to Information Act will achieve social justice, transparency and to make accountable governments.
• Curbing RTI misuse
  • As observed by Delhi High Court, misuse of the RTI Act has to be appropriately dealt with; otherwise the public would lose faith and confidence in this "sunshine Act".
• Improve governance and amend the act
  • A lot more needs to be done to usher in accountability in governance, including protection of whistleblowers, decentralization of power and fusion of authority with accountability at all levels.

Conclusion

• We are in the 18th Year since the RTI Act came into existence, although the ACT has done tremendous help to the common citizens.
• However, the present times provide us a priceless opportunity to amend the law and redesign the processes of governance, particularly at the grassroots level where the citizens’ interface is maximum for a better informed citizenry and for the nation as a whole.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. Increased pendency of RTI applications coupled with understaffed or nonfunctional Information Commissions has undermined the very purpose of the Right to Information, critically analyze. (250 words)