RTI Act Amendment: Killing One More Institution?

The issue of RTI Act Amendment basically is: Should the truth about the arbitrary, autocratic, corrupt and opaque functioning of government and its instrumentalities be brought in the open and made accountable? When the government is killing the Information Commission it is expressing its own fear of the truth and is projecting a false image before the public.

- MG Devasahayam

THE government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is turning out to be a bundle of contradictions. It says one thing and does just the opposite. It talks about “sab ka saath, sab ka vikas” (inclusive growth) but practices the predatory and non-inclusive model of big-ticket development. It preaches “minimum government, maximum governance”, but in practice, it is the opposite of “maximum government, minimum governance”. It mouths the noble principles of ‘transparency’ and ‘empowering’ the people but goes about disempowering the common man in the most secretive manner.

Passing the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 hurriedly in Lok Sabha within three days of its introduction and then ramming it through Rajya Sabha in unconcealed haste proves the last point. Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi rightly terms it as ‘disempowering every Indian citizen.’ She goes on to say: “It is a matter of utmost concern that the Central government is hell-bent on completely subverting the historic Right to Information Act 2005. This law, prepared after widespread consultations and passed unanimously by Parliament, now stands on the brink of extinction.”