The BJP government is systematically killing the revolutionary act, says senior party leader Jairam Ramesh
NEW DELHI — The Congress on Sunday accused the Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the centre of systematically killing the Right to Information Act and turning the Central Information Commission into a toothless organisation.
“For the BJP, the RTI means Right to Intimidate”, remarked party general secretary in charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh. He was addressing a press conference to mark the 20th anniversary of the implementation of the Act under the Congress-led UPA government on October 12, 2005.
Ramesh said that the purpose and intention of the revolutionary Act was to bring transparency in the functioning of the government and make it accountable. He said, however, the Modi government brought an amendment to the Act in 2019, to weaken it and turn the CIC into a toothless organisation. And as if that was not enough, one particular provision in the Digital Data Protection Act, brought in later, amended the RTI Act, and if implemented without amendments, it would effectively dismantle the RTI, he added.
He said that for the last two years, the CIC was being run by just two members. He said that the position of the Chief Information Commissioner was lying vacant along with those of seven other members. The CIC headquarters look like a ghost house, he remarked, while referring to deep aversion of the Modi government towards the RTI.
The Congress leader listed five reasons for the Modi government’s grievance towards the RTI Act which led to its weakening. He said, first was the order by the Chief Information Commissioner to provide information about Prime Minister Modi’s MA degree in ‘Entire’ Political Science under RTI.
The second reason, he added, was that while the prime minister had claimed that there were crores of fake ration cards in the country, the information obtained through the RTI revealed that Modi’s claims were wrong.
The third reason, he disclosed, was the information revealed through the RTI that just four hours prior to the demonetisation announcement made by Prime Minister Modi, the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India had concluded that the demonetisation would not help in curbing black money or fake currency in any way.
Fourthly, he said, was that under the RTI Act, somebody had sought list of 20 top willful loan defaulters of the country. He said, the CIC had said that the list had been submitted by the then RBI governor to the PMO.
The fifth reason, Jairam Ramesh said, was that it was revealed through the RTI that no black money had come back from abroad as had been promised by Prime Minister Modi ahead of 2014 general elections.
The Congress general secretary warned that the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, if implemented in its current form, will prove to be the death knell for the RTI. He said, Section 44(3) of the Act says that no personal information will be accessible under the RTI.
He said this provision can be misused to deny important information on the pretext of it being “personal information”. People holding public offices and public positions cannot hold back information on this pretext, he asserted. He said, he had written to the Union Minister for Information Technology seeking an amendment to the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, lest it become the death knell for the RTI. “What is personal about the activities conducted in public life?” he asked.
Jairam Ramesh recalled that the RTI was the first of the several transformative ‘rights-based legislations’ by the Congress-led UPA government headed by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. These included MGNREGA, Forest Rights Act 2006, Right to Education 2009, Food Security Act 2013 and the Land Acquisition Act 2013.
The senior Congress leader said that he had challenged the amendments to the RTI Act on December 17, 2019 in the Supreme Court of India. But, he regretted, the matter was still pending in the apex court even after the passage of about six years.
