Constitutional Basis of the RTI Act, 2005 vis-a-vis the 2019 Amendment
Feb. 09, 2020 • Samiksha Gupta
The Right to information Act, 2005
The real Swaraj will come not by the acquisition of authority by a few, but by the acquisition of capacity by all to resist authority when abused.
-Mahatma Gandhi
The Right to Information, Act 2005 was a landmark legislation in instituting a mechanism to make the taxpayer aware, and provide him means to be informed, of the status and soundness of the services availed by him, provided by a public authority. It is often said that in modern society information is power. By sharing that information with the people at large, we are therefore, proposing decentralization and participatory governance. It is revolutionary enactment that has placed huge powers in the hands of the ordinary citizen of the country to demand a transparent and accountable administration. Through this Act, and its subsequent elements, the ill-effects of bureaucracy and governmental opacity have been greatly reduced to the extent of virtual non-existence. The essence of this legislation can be gauged from a simple fact that now, almost all kinds of information related to public welfare can be accessed at any place, by anyone, with minimal or zero deterrence. We ought to be grateful to the purveyors of this Act who endeavored towards the betterment of a future nation.
History of Right To Information Act,2005
The date, 12th October, 2005 shall be remembered as a new era of empowerment for the common man in India as it was the date on which this law came into force throughout the country, except the state of Jammu and Kashmir. This law was passed by Parliament on 15th June 2005 and came fully into force on 12th October 2005. However, the present state of this legislation is the outcome of a series of long-standing efforts put forward by a large mass of people over a long period of time.
The roots of RTI can be traced back to early 1990s in the rural Rajasthani municipal departments, where the citizens demanded copies from the authorities about the remuneration of farm labourers. Later, the rural community and the protesters organized themselves into a union named as Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan in 1994. This movement turned into a campaign and resulted in the enactment of the Rajasthan Right to Information, Act in 2000.
Various other organizations, such as the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) worked towards the enactment of RTI. Tamil Nadu was the first state to have passed a law on Right to Information in 1997, which was followed by half-a-dozen states - Goa (1997), Rajasthan (2000), Maharashtra (2000), Karnataka (2000) and Delhi (2001).
With a view to implement the policies of the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance, the then Central Government Introduced the Freedom of Information Bill in 2000. After two years of lingering, the bill was finally passed by the Parliament on 4th December, 2002 and received Presidential Assent on 6th January, 2003. However, the RTI Bill was tabled in 2004, and finally passed after about 150 amendments in 2005 and came to be known as the Right to Information Act, 2005.
The moral tenet behind this act and its provisions is that information empowers the people and permits them to appropriately exercise their social, legal, economic and political rights. Almost every society has tried to make endeavors by placing the mechanisms for the free flow of information and ideas for people to access them whenever it is required. It entails a spectrum of knowledge about various issues and involves different stakeholders from market to the government. It is the key which helps make decisions. It is also a public resource collected and stored by Government in trust for people.
Constitutional Basis of RTI, Act
To think that Right to Information is an exclusive, unprecedented legislation that has brought about a radical change in the society is mistakenly wrong. In fact, RTI draws inspiration from many of the existing, indelible articles, sections and sub-sections of the Indian Constitution, concerning with equality and fair treatment of the citizens. In fact, if it weren’t for these fundamental principles that laid the foundation for RTI, there wouldn’t have been such a revolutionary entity in the first place.
1. Article 19(1)(a)
“This provision guarantees the fundamental right to free speech and expression, which includes within it the right to access information. The pre-requisite for enjoying this right is knowledge and information. Thus, the right to information becomes a constitutional right as the right to free speech also guarantees right to receive and collect and information. This Article, thus, permits the State to make such laws as to impose reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the freedoms guaranteed under this provision on grounds such as security of the state, sovereignty and integrity of India and other grounds as enumerated in the provision.”
2. Article 21
This article talks about “right to life and personal liberty, which includes the right to know about things that affect our lives. The expression ―life and personal liberty‖ is a broad term, which includes within itself variety of rights and attributes. In a gist, this article, in the context of RTI, confers on all persons a right to know which includes right to information.”
3. Article 32
“This article guarantees a right to constitutional remedies on the situation of a violation of the fundamental right of any citizen. The constitution also imposes certain duties upon the citizens under Article 51 A. A fully informed citizen is better equipped for the performance of these duties. RTI is not specifically mentioned in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, and does not fall under any of three subject lists of the Constitution. As such it is a residuary matter and the power to legislate on such matters rests with the Central government”.
The 2019 Amendment
The Right to Information (Amendment), Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on July 19, 2019. While retaining the basic structure of the original Act, this amendment seeks to introduce a set of new key features. The Bill modifies the appointment procedure and tenure of the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) at the center, and corresponding Information commissioners(IC) at the state level. In this apparent controversial move, the Government has seemingly made an effort to bring the office of CIC under the thumb. Also, the remunerations received and tenure granted to the CIC’ and IC at state level have faced some serious alterations. The Bill seeks to bring the salaries Of CICs and ICs at par with those of Chief Election Commissioners and State Election Commissioners respectively. Where at one side, the center empowers the executives in monetary terms, it seeks to do away with the tenure of the same pre-determined in the 2005 Act. According to the new Act , the earlier five- year fixed tenure of the CICs and IC has been modified to an indefinite term that would be determined by the Central Government.
Bibliography –
Case Laws -
- Sakal Newspapers (Private) Ltd. v. Union of India
The Supreme Court held that the impugned Act and the Order imposed unconstitutional restriction on the freedom of the press. The court also held that restriction upon freedom of speech was to be examined with lesser presumption of constitutionality than the restrictions upon freedom of trade or business. The court brought in the preferred freedom doctrine in Indian Constitution.
- S. P. Gupta v. Union of India
This case is popularly known as Judges Transfer case, Bhagwati, J. had advised in the landmark case that it is essential for the people to have as much information about governmental operations as possible. Participation in government by the people is regarded, as an important aspect of democracy and people cannot participate unless they have information as to what is going on in the country.
- PUCL v. Union of India
Section 14 of POTA the obligation to furnish information was held to be intra-vires Articles 14, 19, 20(3) and 21.Neither a lawyer can claim professional communication beyond what is permitted under section 126 of Indian Evidence Act, nor is there any law permitting a newspaper or a journalist to withhold relevant information from courts, nor can withholding of such information be traced to the right to privacy, which itself is not an absolute right.
· In the landmark Maneka Gandhi vs. Union of India,-
Justice V. Krishna Iyar opined that “A government which functions secretly not only act against the democratic decency, but buried itself with its own burial.” In a democratic setup there must be direct participation of the people in the democracy. This participation is meaningless unless the citizens are well informed on all sides of issues in respect of which they are called upon to express their views. One sided information, disinformation, misinformation and non-information all equally create uninformed citizenry which makes democracy a farce, When medium of information is monopolized either by a partisan central authority or by private individuals or oligarchic organizations. Therefore to avoid this monopoly the duty of the government is to give information to the people of the country because the government is the trust of the people.
References -
· www.lexassito.com .2019. “CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS OF RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT 2005 by PRANAV KAUSHAL” [Online]. Available at - https://lexassisto.com/constitutional-basis-of-right-to-information-act-2005-pranav-kaushal/ .
(Accessed 20 January,2020)
- www.indiatoday.in .2019 . “WHAT MAKES RTI AMENDMENT BILL SO CONTROVERSIAL by PRABASH K DUTTA ?” [Online] . Available at - https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/what-makes-rti-amendment-bill-so-controversial-1572596-2019-07-23
(Accessed 21 January,2020)
- www.prsindia.org .2019. [Online] .Available at - http://prsindia.org/billtrack/right-information-amendment-bill-2019
My name is Akshit Gupta, and I am a second year law student, pursuing BBA.LLB from Bharti Vidyapeeth, New Law College, Pune.
I am an avid reader and a writer who loves to pen about social and contemporary issues. I am currently pursuing my research on Alternative Dispute Resolution and and it's allied subjects.