After Sonia and Rahul, former CIC lashes out at Modi govt for 'crippling' RTI Act

Former Central Information Commissioner (CIC) Shailesh Gandhi on Monday lashed out at the Centre for allegedly rendering the Right to Information (RTI) Act “dysfunctional” by taking retrogressive steps. In an open letter written to a section of the media, Gandhi said, “the present Prime Minister has taken preemptive action by not appointing a Chief Information Commissioner at all to render it dysfunctional.” Gandhi, a noted RTI activist from Mumbai, was appointed to the Central Information Commission in 2008 where he served till retirement in 2012, after giving numerous landmark judgements. [caption id=“attachment_2239506” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Modi govt was criticised for allegedly subverting RTI Act. Reuters[/caption] The former CIC also hit out at the bureaucracy saying it was “hardening” its stand and in most cases has realised that the Commissioners are “not committed” to transparency. Stating that “reluctance” of the Commission in imposing penalties is slowly making it difficult to get sensitive information, Gandhi’s letter further read, “In the Central Information Commission, six Commissioners had disposed 22,351 cases in 2011, whereas in 2014 seven Commissioners disposed only 16,006 cases.” “In 2014, the central commission got 31,000 cases and presently has a pendency of over 38,000 cases. It is evident that at this languorous pace of working, RTI will slowly become like the Consumer Act, mainly in existence for commissioners. Citizens must wake out of their slumber and focus on getting commissioners who will dispose over 6,000 cases a year and give clear signals they won’t tolerate tardines,” The Times of India quoted Gandhi as saying. In the write-up titled “The RTI Act-Present Status”, Gandhi has also referred to two “biggest dangers” to RTI, first one from the government itself which thinks that “transparency is a hindrance” to good governance and the second - a selection of Information Commissioners that has become a part of “political patronage”. “Their (commissioners’) orders are often biased against transparency and in many places a huge backlog is being built up as a consequence of their inability to cope,” the letter said. He also made scathing remarks on the commitment of the commissioners, and said, “Consequently a law which seeks to ensure giving information to citizens in 30 days on pain of penalty gets stuck for over a year at the Commissions. Most of these Commissioners do not work to deliver results in a time-bound manner and lose all moral authority to penalise PIOs who do not work in a time-bound manner.” On 6 May, an uproar over the Modi government’s alleged subversion of the RTI Act was also created in the Lok Sabha when Congress president Sonia Gandhi had attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “blatant U-turn” on the issue of transparency, charging his government with “deliberately” keeping key posts of Chief Information Commissioner, CVC and Lok Pal vacant. Accusing the BJP dispensation of attempting to “subvert the RTI Act”, she had said that citizens no longer have right to question the government as top offices like the PMO, Cabinet Secreteriat besides the Supreme Court, High Courts and CAG are no longer accountable for violations under the RTI and protected from public scrutiny. Sonia Gandhi had sought to bring an adjournment motion on the issue in the Lok Sabha but was allowed to raise it after the question hour. The Congress President had lamented that the CIC post was lying vacant for over eight months and the posts of three Information Commissioners for over a year, resulting in the backlog of 39,000 cases. “Information delayed is information denied. This is simply not acceptable. Protecting wrongdoers cannot be part of any government ethos,” she had said, recalling Modi’s promises of transparency and good governance. “In a blatant U-turn, his government has made sure that the offices of the PMO, Cabinet Secretariat… are no longer accountable. … It points to a clear attempt to avoid transparency and subvert the RTI,” she had said, adding that the landmark law brought by the UPA empowered millions of people. On the same day, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had also slammed the Modi government over the RTI issue. “Our government fought for transparency. The appointments to the post of RTI commissioner, Lokpal and CVC are not being done by the government and the posts are lying vacant. “That’s because the ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ wants to grab land from the people on the behest of its few industrialist friends and give entire power to them,” he had told reporters outside the Parliament. (With inputs from PTI)