There is news that the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), working directly under the prime minister, is slowly killing the Right to Information Act. In July 2019, Parliament passed a bill to amend Section 13 and Section 16 of the RTI Act to review the terms of Central Information Commissioners (CICs) and State Information Commissioners (SICs). The amendment said that their appointment will be “for such term as may be prescribed by the Central Government,” and that salaries, allowances and other terms of service of the CIC/IC “shall be such as may be prescribed by the Central Government”.
The clumsy reason given for this amendment is that, at present, Chief/Information Commissioners enjoy parity with the Chief/Election Commissioners and this was not acceptable as the Election Commission is a constitutional body, while Information Commissions are only statutory bodies established under the RTI Act, 2005. This is a cooked-up excuse to justify the final slaughtering of the RTI Act and to choke the information flow available to people.
According to the draft rules being framed by the DoPT, the terms and conditions of the CIC, including pay and perks, would be the same as of the cabinet secretary, which is significantly lower than of the Chief Election Commissioner. Those of the central ICs will be similar to those of a secretary to the government. State CICs will draw pay and perks equivalent to that of a secretary (or chief secretary of the state), and ICs of the state may get the pay and perks of additional secretaries to the government. Besides, the CIC and the ICs will have a fixed tenure of only three years as against the five now, which is the same as that of Election Commissioners.
At present, apart from salary, CICs and ICs avail of sumptuous allowances and several perks and benefits on a par with Election Commissioners. If the CIC and ICs are downgraded, several of these perks and benefits would be lost.
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