Pushmi-pullyu in law: RTI Act
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOINEW/navigator.asp?Daily=BGMIR&showST=true&login=default&pub=MM&AW=1334896906071
Not one of our many scams would ever have come to light but for this piece of legislation
Hugh Lofting's Dr Doolittle children's books had many wonderful imaginary creatures. One of these was the pushmi-pullyu, a gazelle-unicorn hybrid with a head at either end of its body. When it moved, both ends headed off in opposite directions.
Our RTI Act is beginning to resemble the pushmi-pullyu. In October last year, a Shiv Sena MP introduced a private member's bill seeking to dilute the RTI Act with an amendment that required every RTI application to give reasons which would be tested for sufficiency. The bill was absurd. Of the post-Independence statutes, the RTI Act is the one that has had the most profound impact on governance. Not one of our many public disclosures — what we love to call "scams" — would ever have come to light but for this Act.
When laws are designed to give power to the people, they also create uncomfortable stressors for those in authority; the RTI Act more than most. In its early days, it was embraced enthusiastically by judges who tended to see it as an important check on errant governments and arrogant bureaucrats. With the judiciary itself the subject of RTI queries, noises are being made about the Act being 'excessive'. It is not.
In an August 2011 judgement, the Supreme Court spoke of "indiscriminate and impractical demands or directions under RTI Act for disclosure of all and sundry information (unrelated to transparency and accountability in the functioning of public authorities and eradication of corruption)". It saw RTI queries as "non-productive", and felt that possible abuses of the RTI Act obstructed "national development and integration", destroyed "peace, tranquility and harmony among its citizens" and led to the "oppression or intimidation of honest officials striving to do their duty."
"The nation does not want," the Court said, "a scenario where 75 per cent of the staff of public authorities spends 75 per cent of their time in collecting and furnishing information to applicants instead of discharging their regular duties."
This is an astonishing statement, not least because it is wrong in nearly every aspect. Shailesh Gandhi, one of our Information Commissioners, is a man who sold his thriving business to dedicate his life to the freedom of information movement, of which he is a preeminent member. He decided to do a reality check. Massaging some figures — the number of RTI applications, employees, average time spent and so on — he concluded, using the Supreme Court's phraseology, that no more than 4.6 per cent of government officials could ever more than 4.6 per cent of their time answering RTI queries.
Last week, during the hearings on media guidelines on reporting of sub-judice matters, the Chief Justice of India, heading a Constitution Bench, too said that RTI applications were "going beyond all limits" and said that while it was a "good law", there must be limits to it. It is hard to agree.
The dynamics of the RTI Act are misunderstood. Most assume that an authority must sit on information till it is demanded under a properly filed RTI application; and then must get to work collecting and collating the information sought. Sections 4(1)(b) and (c) of the RTI Act require such a collation. But no one seems to have paid much attention to Section 4(2) of the Act, which requires every public authority to "constantly endeavour" to voluntarily disclose that which is a citizen's right to know "so that the public have minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information." Implement this, and see the number of RTI queries fall.
What should be our exemplars? Florida's "Sunshine Law" that dates back to 1967 and has its roots even earlier, from 1909, requires wide public disclosure with very few, narrowly defined exceptions. There are many cases filed regarding this law; but this peculiar notion that sheer numbers of queries constitute an 'abuse' of the law is not among them. Where do we need this law? In nearly every aspect of life, from planning proposals and land deals to government contracts and the issue of licences, and more. It is difficult to think of a situation where an RTI query is not required.
Even when it comes to reportage of matters in court, the US model has enormous openness. The recent three-day hearings before the US Supreme Court on Obama's health care law are one example: verbatim transcripts were available in the media the very next day. So were audio recordings, including those of Justice Scalia asking whether being asked to choose between "my life and my wife" was viable.
Courts also forget how the RTI act is abused by the authorities. Every authority makes every attempt, however absurd, to withhold information. Reports of government-appointed panels and bodies are withheld. The CIC orders disclosure, rightly; as it has just done on the Antrix-Devas deal, another matter sought to be shrouded in secrecy.
The RTI demands public disclosure not for any great joy in accumulating paper, but for greater accountability and better governance; and it is not for any authority to decide whether a query is "related" to these issues. After all, knowledge — and therefore information — is power.
With the judiciary itself the subject of RTI queries, noises are being made about the Act being 'excessive'. It is not
__._,_.___
.
__,_._,___
No comments:
Post a Comment