National Campaign for People's Right to Information

2 December 2005

PRESS STATEMENT

The National Campaign for People's Right to Information strongly condemns the effort of the government to limit the scope of the Right to Information Act by attempting to further restrict access to various types of file notings. This is clearly a retrograde step, which, if it succeeds, will encourage unscrupulous government functionaries to continue dispensing patronage and exercising arbitrary power. Without access to notings, there is no real transparency as the decision that a government takes cannot be evaluated unless one knows the basis on which that decision was taken and the options that were considered and rejected. Surely, in a democracy, all decisions of the government must be able to stand up to public scrutiny. Besides, sensitive information, including file notings, that it is in public interest to exempt from disclosure, are already protected under section 8 of the Act. The oft-repeated argument that public access to file notings would pressurise officials against expressing their views frankly, is a seriously flawed one. The pressure to give dishonest or wrong advice, or advice that is not in keeping with public interest or the law, comes not from the public but from bureaucratic and political bosses, who already have access to file notings without needing the RTI act. In fact, public accessibility of notings would help ensure that officers are not pressurised into recording notes that are not in public interest, and that decisions are based on reasonable grounds and are not arbitrary or self serving. This would strengthen the hands of the honest and conscientious officers and expose the dishonest and self serving ones. The exclusion of notings from the purview of the RTI Act would also be contrary to the recommendation of the National Advisory Council, which has clearly taken the position that file notings are an integral part of a file and of the decision making process, and should therefore be as much in the public domain as any other information covered by the RTI law. It any case, the government cannot restrict access to notings just by suitably drafting rules for the RTI Act. As the definition of information, which includes "any material in any form, including .…advices, opinions…" is contained in the Act and not in any rule, it cannot be amended through the rules. Similarly, as exemptions and exclusions are also listed in the Act and not in any rule, they cannot be added to through the rules.

The NCPRI is also distressed at the prevailing tendency of various security agencies to seek to be excluded from the RTI Act. This is despite that fact that all information the disclosure of which would prejudicially affect the security of India has already been exempted from disclosure in section 8(1) (a). We are firmly of the view that making security agencies more accountable is essential to the improvement of their functioning. We, therefore, strongly oppose the inclusion of any other agencies under schedule two of the Act and, in fact, believe that it will be in the interest of the country to remove from the schedule some of the agencies that are currently listed there. We, therefore, urge the government to desist from any move that will weaken the RTI law and be contrary to the resolve of the people of India to move towards a transparent and accountable government and a participatory democracy.

Aruna Roy               Shekhar Singh

On behalf of the Working Committee of the NCPRI

Working Committee: Ajit Bhattacharjea, Anjali Bhardwaj, Aruna Roy, Arvind Kejriwal, Bharat Dogra, Harsh Mander, Maja Daruwala, Nikhil Dey, Prabhash Joshi, Prakash Kardaley, Prashant Bhushan, Shailesh Gandhi, Suman Sahai, Vishaish Uppal, Shekhar Singh  (Convenor)