Update: This Article has been circulated among 16,00,000 (16 Lakh) people so far!
RTI has been seen as the key towards strengthening participatory democracy and ushering in people centered governance. Access to information can empower the poor and the weaker sections of society to demand and get information about public policies and actions, thereby leading to their welfare.
According to retired Central Information Commissioner
Shailesh Gandhi, the biggest problem facing the RTI Act currently is the large
pendency of cases at the Information Commissions which are responsible for
enforcing the RTI Act. The current state of pendency of cases is such that
almost all cases take many months to be resolved and most take years. At such
rate, the common man will soon run away from this just as he/she has run away
from most of judicial and quasi- judicial processes chiefly due to their
extremely time-taking nature. Implementing a Citizens Charter in the
Information Commissions can be one of the most important steps towards avoiding
such degradation of the RTI Act.
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the atomic age -- as in being able to remake ourselves.”
This Article, Published in Employment News - Mahatma Gandhi
Growing calls for upliftment of ethical standards of
individuals in recent times has been fueled by a lengthy and extensive debate
on the question that whether moral characteristics of an organization are
largely independent of those of individuals comprising it. Going into that
debate is outside the scope of this article. However, what has become clear
from the debate is that systemic factors by themselves do significantly affect
moral characteristics of an organization.
Ethics are important not only because it creates a more just
society, but also, more importantly, from the point of view of personal contentment
of the person who is ethical or unethical. Ethical proclivities create a
win-win situation for the individual as well as the society. The relationship
between happiness and ethics is bi-causal in the sense that personal ethics
affects one’s happiness while happiness also affects ethical preferences.
Research has shown that happiness increases in ethical proclivities and that
greater happiness results in improved ethical judgments thus creating a synergy
between ethics and self-esteem. The results from a research on American
Marketing Association members indicate that management experts generally
believe that ethics and social responsibility are important components of
organizational effectiveness.
Loss of ethics would result in collapse of social structure
and complete chaos. The role of ethics in our society is very important because
it is the basic beliefs and standards that make everything run smoothly. Sense
of ethics helps in creating a climate in which we trust that at least some
basic level of morality is assured. For example, because we believe our doctors
are ethical, we feel certain we can trust their diagnoses. The atmosphere of
universal distrust that would result from collapse of ethics would bring the
entire humanity to a screeching halt as no business would ever be possible.
One of the most important systemic factors that determine
moral characteristics of governance is Transparency. In India, it is the
Official Secrets Act, 1923 (OSA) that has been regarded in many quarters as
being primarily responsible for the excessive secrecy in government. Section 5 of this Act provides for punishment
for unauthorized disclosure of Official secrets but omits to define secrets.
This has invited sustained criticism and demand for its amendment.
The Report of the Working Group constituted under the
Chairmanship of Shri H. D. Shourie on “Right to Information and Transparency,
1997” recommended a comprehensive amendment of Section 5(1) of OSA to make its
penal provisions applicable only to violations affecting national security. The
First Report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission released in June
2006 under the chairpersonship of Shri Veerappa Moily agrees with that
recommendation thus, “While recognizing the importance of keeping certain
information secret in national interest, the Commission is of the view that the
disclosure of information has to be the norm and keeping it secret should be an
exception. OSA, in its present form is
an obstacle for creation of a regime of freedom of information, and to that
extent the provisions of OSA need to be amended. The Commission, on careful consideration
agrees with the amendment proposed by the Shourie Committee, as it reconciles
harmoniously the need for transparency and the imperatives of national security
without in anyway compromising the latter”. It further, quite appreciably, goes
on to recommend complete repeal of the Official Secrets Act, 1923.
While the OSA is one of the most glaring examples of our
archaic laws smelling of colonialism, there is no dearth of such laws and
practices. For example, the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 prohibits the giving of
evidence in a court of law derived from unpublished official records relating
to affairs of State except with the permission of the Head of the Department.
Furthermore, quite absurdly, Section 124 of the Act stipulates, “No public
officer shall be compelled to disclose communications made to him in official
confidence when he considers that the public interests would suffer by the
disclosure”. While some arguments may be given for thus protecting the Head of
a Department from compulsion to produce evidence which is with him/her by
virtue of his official appointment, giving such a privilege to every “public
officer” greatly thickens the veil of secrecy and is a gracious invitation to
the proverbial Kamdev, the God of Temptation. The Law Commission in its
69th report in 1977 and 88th report in 1983, the Shourie
Committee in 1997 and the Administrative Reforms Commission in 2006 has recommended
revision of this Act.
A huge portion of Indian public is frustrated with the
inability of governmental institutions to adequately resolve the wide range of
difficult issues facing them. The good news is that an ever-growing number of
people have been demanding to be brought into the decision-making process in a
meaningful way. Citizens want to be involved from beginning to the end in
governance matters. If this happens, accountability of governmental
institutions would increase significantly.
However, it has been seen throughout the world that even
honest Governments fail to involve citizens to a non-negligible extent.
Research has shown that the primary reason for the same is that the Governments
don’t trust the judgment of its citizens. Another important reason is also the
widely held belief that it is the reluctance to share power that stops Governmental
officers from distributing power among the citizenry. Indeed, in the current
Governance landscape in India, with numerous pressure groups and nervous
bureaucracy, Citizen Involvement may well be seen as adding too much delay but
little value. The issue becomes graver because of the ever-increasing trend in
politics of giving priority to securing the vote-bank which makes efforts to
please everyone and offend no one.
The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI) is a landmark
legislation and by far the single most empowering one in the history of India.
For the first time, people have been given a framework under which they can ask
questions to public servants to keep them accountable. Earlier, almost all such
questions met with reprimand from public servants.
RTI has been seen as the key towards strengthening participatory democracy and ushering in people centered governance. Access to information can empower the poor and the weaker sections of society to demand and get information about public policies and actions, thereby leading to their welfare.
RTI opens up government’s records to public scrutiny,
thereby arming citizens with a vital tool to inform them about what the
government does and how effectively. Transparency in government organisations
makes them function more objectively. Information about functioning of
government also enables citizens to participate in the governance process
effectively.
RTI is very comprehensive and covers almost all matters of
governance and has the widest possible reach, being applicable to government at
all levels – Union, State and Local as well as recipients of government grants.
Access to information under RTI is extensive with relatively few exemptions.
Indeed, in a comprehensive world-wide RTI Rating Project undertaken by Centre
for Law and Democracy based in Canada and Spain-based Access Info Europe, India
is ranked 2nd in the world scoring an impressive 130 out of 150
points and closely following Serbia which is ranked first with 135 points.
United States of America and United Kingdom scored 89 points and 97 points
respectively while Germany and Greece scored 54 and 40 points respectively.
However, as may be expected in a new legislation of this
kind, permanently impacting on all agencies of government, there are bound to
be implementation issues and problem areas, which need to be addressed.
In a large number of cases information sought to be accessed
stems from a grievance against a department/agency. Experience has shown that
functionaries/departments tend to be defensive rather than proactive in
redressing a grievance (or even in disclosing information) particularly when it
directly pertains to their conduct (or misconduct). This proclivity underlines
the need for an independent forum to hear complaints into acts of omission and
commission, harassment, corruption etc. which emerge either through information
collected under RTI or otherwise.
