The Hindu Business Line : Govt’s misguided move

An impressive array of 204 eminent personalities has put its weight behind a representation to the Prime Minister, protesting the Government’s decision to amend the Right to Information Act (RTI) to exclude from its purview “vexatious and frivolous” applications and “discussion/consultations that take place before arriving at a decision” in file notings, Cabinet papers etc.. The grounds for the protest are that words such as “vexatious&# 8221; and “frivolous” are purely subjective and consequently prone to rampant misuse by officials, and that it is imperative for citizens in a democracy to know the pros and cons of official decisions as a means of enforcing “transparency” and “accountability” in governance.

Fear of disclosure

The Government’s motives will certainly be suspect if it bars full disclosure of file notings and intra- and inter-Ministerial and departmental discussions and consultations. The fear of such a disclosure is the only way to instil in officialdom and Ministers a modicum of propriety, prudence and probity in dealing with matters, especially involving taxpayers’ money, coming up before them. For instance, the allotment of 2G spectrum is said to have resulted in the loot of astronomical amounts, while the Minister concerned has been asserting that everything was in accordance with the procedures laid down by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and that the Cabinet itself had approved his action. There is no way for the citizens who are also taxpayers and sovereign masters of those elected to legislatures and appointed to Cabinets to ascertain the truth except by the scrutiny of the contents of the file notings and the Cabinet proceedings.

Or take the release on two months’ parole of the murder convict, Manu Sharma, on the plea (without verifying it) of serious illness of his mother whom the media found to be hale and hearty, while Sharma was spotted making merry at a Delhi disco. Here again, the Delhi Chief Minister has been asserting that all rules were followed, but the Delhi police has been giving out that it had opposed the parole. What means other than obtaining the file notings under RTI do the citizens have to find out whether any political chicanery was involved?

Labour-saving device

Such examples, including the apparent derelictions and political partisanship of the CBI , the Enforcement Directorate and prosecuting agencies, can be multiplied. It is necessary for the citizens to be vested with the power under the Act to force the Governments to throw open to the public gaze all the records of deliberations and consultations so as to guard against misconduct and misdeeds.

I can, however, appreciate the reason behind the amendment to exclude ‘frivolous’ and ‘vexatious’ applications. In the first flush of the excitement caused by the enactment, thousands of applications under the Act piled up in government offices throughout the country even in regard to information that the applicants could have easily accessed from, say, official publications, libraries, Internet websites and so on. There is no doubt that this tendency of activists to use the RTI as a labour-saving device simply choked the RTI channels and brought to a standstill the process of gathering and supplying information.

There is, therefore, justification for an amendment excluding from the ambit of RTI applications seeking information readily available in the public domain or of a personal nature or relating to career prospects for which suitable mechanisms already exist.

B. S. RAGHAVAN