[RTI INDIA] Govt must hold wide public consultation before notifying the Central RTI (Amendment) Rules 2010

Govt must hold wide public consultation before notifying the Central RTI (Amendment) Rules 2010

 

Most people including RTI activists across the country are yet in dark about the Centre's ongoing move to amend the existing Central RTI Rules. Unlike the democratic course of open and wide public consultation that the Central Government under UPA-I had adopted in 2004-05 while switching over from Freedom of Information Act 2002 to RTI Act 2005, the present Government under UPA-II seems to hurriedly push through a set of amendments to Central RTI Rules bypassing any semblance of debate or discussion involving the public at large. So much so, except a few internet-literate RTI zealots who incidentally constitute a microscopic minority among the RTI users of the country, no body knows that the Government had sought the public opinion on the draft amendments through a so-called Office Memorandum dated 10^th Dec 2010, and the deadline for the public response i.e. 27^th Dec 2010 is already over. Without its publication in any print or electronic media, the bunch of draft amendments were innocuously put in an obscure column under the category 'Circulars' in the website of RTI Portal hosted by the DoPT, GoI (http://persmin.gov.in/WriteReadData/RTI/RTI_rules_01122010-1.pdf). The forwarding note to the said Office Memorandum reads as follows:

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File No. 1/35/2008-IR
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions
Department of Personnel Training

 

North Block, New Delhi-110001
Dated 10th December, 2010.

 

OFFICE MEMORANDUM

 

Subject : Amendment to RTI Rules.

The Government proposes to notify Right to Information Rules in supersession of the existing rules, namely, the Right to Information (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules, 2005 and the Central Information Commission (Appeal Procedure) Rules, 2005. Comments if any, on the proposed Rules may be sent at e-mail address, usrti dopt@nic.in by 27thDecember, 2010.

Sd/-
(R.K.Giridhar)
US(RTI)

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Irrespective of the merit of any specific draft amendment mooted in the said Office Memorandum, the quintessential question that haunts the average run of RTI activists is precisely this-- If the Government is well intentioned in proposing the draft amendments, why didn't it publicize the same in the mainstream print and electronic media, which for obvious reasons, command greater and easier reach among the common RTI users across the country.

 

The next important question in this regard arises from the very text of the prefatory note referred above. It is conspicuously deficient in any explanation as to why the proposed draft amendments were necessitated and above all, how are the proposed amendments an improvement over the existing Rules in terms of the mandates of RTI Act. Such an explanation should have formed an indispensable part of the Office Memorandum in view of Section 4-1c of RTI Act ('publish all relevant facts while formulating important policies or announcing the decisions which affect public') and also Section 4-1d ('provide reasons for its administrative or quasi-judicial decisions to affected persons').

 

Under the circumstances, the RTI activists need to study in depth as to whether the proposed amendments deflect from the mandates of the parent Act or reinforce them. And the Central Government, if at all its conscience is clear about the need for the amendment of the existing Rules along the proposed lines, ought to make a fresh notification of the draft amendments in the mainstream print and electronic media for inviting the public opinion/objections along with an explanatory note in compliance to Section 4-1 (c & d) of RTI Act.

Chitta Behera

Dt 3rd Jan 2011

am                       media for inviting the public opinion/objections along with an explanatory note in compliance to Section 4-1 (c & d) of RTI Act.