[HumJanenge] Fw: IE : Editorial : Full disclosure

Indian Express : Editorial


http://www.indianexpress.com/news/full-disclosure/858293/0


Full disclosure

The Indian Express Posted online: Tue Oct 11 2011, 02:03 hrs

The Right to Information Act, brought in after decades of civil society pressure in 2005, has been one of the UPA's biggest achievements. It is an enforceable right of public access to official workings, a radical switch that assumes government and governed have the same interests. In its brief life, RTI-enabled investigations have shed light on large matters like the Commonwealth Games corruption, the Adarsh scam and the 2G debates within government, apart from exposing land scams and misuse of public funds, even forcing the higher judiciary to declare assets.

Confronted with the clamour for a Lokpal office, the RTI is the government's most convincing proof of its commitment to accountability. So it is both predictable and disappointing that the RTI should now be viewed as a liability, in the wake of all these revelations. The finance and telecom ministries have demanded the PMO be kept out of its remit. Others claim the joint parliamentary committee investigating the 2G matter should have first dibs on this information. Ministers like Veerappa Moily and Salman Khurshid have also questioned the RTI, calling it an obstructive force, and one that impairs "institutional efficiency".

It is only natural that the RTI should be unloved and unwanted by much of the executive and administration. It has been criticised for causing disruptions and wasting official time with "frivolous" petitions. It has been alleged that RTI would end up gagging official opinion, make civil servants more cautious with file-notings. Despite the fact that Section 8(1) of the RTI provides exemptions for material likely to threaten security, strategic, scientific or economic interests, information received in confidence from foreign governments, or information that will impede investigations, among other heads, many corners of the government have asked to be left out. If it was made to the government's specifications, RTI would be reduced to meaninglessness — the requests considered not too frivolous, not too motivated, and not too threatening to institutional efficiency, could end up being a rather slender range of things.

The government must be reminded that the RTI's recent embarrassing disclosures have only reflected the embarrassing actions within government. It has revealed the cross-purposes and the confusion within the government. However, if these developments are used as an excuse to roll back the RTI, the UPA would be diluting its obligations towards democratic accountability.