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PAPER SUBMITTED ON
RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT 2005 - AN OVERVIEW
PAPER SUBMITTED BY:
ANUSHREE ADHAU
LL.M. 1st^ year NALSAR, HYDERABAD.
ABSTRACT
The Right to Information Act 2005 is unique and one its kind. It has been enacted for the convenience of the citizens of the country and to maintain the transparency between the government working and the public who are the beneficiaries. As the Act aims at making the government transparent and more accountable, the effective use of it would, in a long run, curb corruption. If we do not have information on how our Government and Public Institutions function, we cannot express any informed opinion on it. Democracy revolves around the basic idea of Citizens being at the center of governance. And the freedom of the press is an essential element for a democracy to function. It is thus obvious that the main reason for a free press is to ensure that Citizens are informed. Thus it clearly flows from this that the Citizens Right to Know is of apex importance. Right to Information is a Fundamental Right and guaranteed as per Article 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. It is part of the Fundamental Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression recognized by the Constitution and various Supreme Court decisions. This act has repealed the Freedom of Information Act, 2002. The Act does not emphasize active intervention in educating people about their right to access information- without widespread education and awareness about the possibilities under the new Act; it could just remain on paper. The Act also reinforces the controlling role of the government official, who retains wide discretionary powers to withhold information. However it can be said without any hesitation that India has finally woken up to realize that right to information is a key component in the attainment of economic, social and political rights of an individual as well as the community at large,
INTRODUTION:
Right to Information is a Fundamental Right and guaranteed as per Article 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. It is part of the Fundamental Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression recognized by the Constitution and various Supreme Court decisions. The Right to Information Act 2005 (Act No. 22/2005) is a law enacted by the Parliament of India giving citizens of India access to records of the Central Government and State Governments. The Act applies to all States and Union Territories of India, except the State of Jammu and Kashmir - which is covered under a State-level law. Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen (including the citizens within J&K) may request information from a "public authority" (a body of Government or "instrumentality of State") which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to proactively publish certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
The RTI Laws were first successfully enacted by the state governments — Tamil Nadu (1997), Goa (1997), Rajasthan (2000), Karnataka (2000), Delhi (2001), Maharashtra (2002), Madhya Pradesh (2003), Assam (2002) and Jammu and Kashmir (2004). The Maharashtra and Delhi State level enactments are considered to have been the most widely used. The Delhi and J&K Right to Information Acts are still in force. The first draft of the Right to Information Bill was presented to Parliament on 22 December 2004. After intense debate, more than a hundred amendments to the draft Bill were made between December 2004 and 15 June 2005, when the bill finally passed. The Act came fully into effect on 13 October 2005. The Act covers the whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir. It is applicable to all constitutional authorities, including the executive, legislature and judiciary; any institution or body established or constituted by an act of Parliament or a state legislature. It is also defined in the Act that bodies or authorities established or constituted by order or notification of appropriate government including bodies "owned, controlled or substantially financed" by government, or non-Government organizations "substantially financed,
Sec. 2(i) defines the word ‘record’ as including (a) any document, manuscript and file, (b) any microfilm, microfiche and facsimile copy of a document, (c) any reproduction of image or images embodied in such microfilm and (d) any other material produced by a computer or any other device. The information under this Act includes any mode of information in any form of record, document, e-mail, circular, press release samples, samples of electronic data, etc. The most welcoming feature of this enactment is that the information can be obtained within a fixed time frame of 30 days and if the information relates to life or personal liberty, then it can be obtain within 48 hours. No such time frame provision has been made in any Act or code till this date. There are certain limitations or exemption under section 8 of the Act which precludes the citizen getting such information. Subject to the limitation narrated under section 8, every public authority is under an obligation to provide the information on request both written and oral. The Act made provisions for the Constitution of Central Information and State Information Commissions for the respective States as the appellate authorities and for monitoring the proper working of this Act.
The Act provides for appointment of Public Information Officers in each of the public authorities at different levels. They are appointed by designation of their existing staff. Assistant Public Information Officers are also similarly designated in every division and sub-division of the administrative units.
The first step to be taken by the citizen seeking information is that he may send the application for information to the Assistant Public Information Officers who will transmit it within 5 days to the Public Information Officer. The application so transmitted shall be attended to and disposed of by the Public Information Officer within 30 days of its receipt by him. Here disposal of application means a real and substantial disposal. He should make available the full information in the form it is requested. If the entire material is not available he must make available so much of information as is available with him in the first instance and transmit within 5 days, the rest of the application to the concerned Public Information Officer for disposal who should in his turn shall comply with the request within 30 days as originally fixed. If the information is partly made available and the rest is rejected, the Information Officer shall state the reasons thereof.
The next stage is that if the Public Information Officer refuses to make the information either partly or fully or fails to respond or respond in an unsatisfactory
manner, the applicant for information may file an appeal before the officer higher in status over the Public Information Officer. This appeal before the higher officer is called the First Appeal.
Second Appeal is the third stage. The authority to entertain the Second appeal is the Central/State Information Commission. The powers of Information Commission are very extensive. If the appeal is allowed the Commission may direct the Information Officer to furnish the information in the manner asked for. If the Commission finds the Information Officer to be at fault, the Commission may levy on him heavy penalties and may also direct initiation of disciplinary proceedings against him to the original Appointing Authority. The mechanism thus created for making the information available to the citizen is four-tired commencing from Assistant Public Information Officer, above him, the Public Information Officer, then Senior Officer who is the Appellate Officer and finally the Information Commission that is the Second Appellate Authority. In addition to making the application for information, the Citizen has another right to file a complaint to the Central/State Information Commission direct if the services being provided under the above chain of officers are
found to be wanting in any respect. The Commission while disposing of the complaint may in addition to granting the reliefs as applied for, may further issue General Orders for rectifying the deficiencies in the system complained against by the citizens.
While that much is the procedure to be followed by the citizens in obtaining the information from public authorities, the Central/State Commissions, which are independent statutory bodies, have overall control over the whole system. The Commissions have power to supervise the work of Information Officers and call from them the reports. The Commission will prepare an Annual Statement of the work done, the number of applications for information received and the method of their disposal. The Commission while submitting its own report containing the above particulars to the Government may also include the action taken by the Commissions against erring officers.
The Act is complete code in itself as it is having penalty clause. Section 20 of the Act authorized the Central/States Information Commission to impose penalty of Rs.250 up to Rs.25,000, on erring officials, by giving an opportunity to them. More so the commissions are also authorized to recommend for disciplinary action against the
Impact of the New Law:
Now that the statute requires information about the pendency of the applications, reasons as to why they are not disposed of or the reasons behind the rejection of an application, there is bound to be improvement in the efficiency of the departments. Another important aspect is that in India we have not given respect and prominence to the rights of the individual Citizen. True democracy is impossible until we recognize the majesty of the individual Citizen. If individual Citizens are empowered to ensure greater accountability and transparency in governance, it can bring about a major change.
CONCLUSION:
This Act is designed to facilitate and further its end i.e., empowerment of public to know what is going on under the guise of administration and should not be treated as an enactment providing penalties and punishments.
Without any hesitation it can be said that this Act should be the voice of so called voiceless in our society. Lastly, remind everybody that one should not be crazy about rights only and one should also be mindful about ones duties. Rights and duties are the two sides of a coin.
In recent years, there has been an almost unstoppable global trend towards recognition of the right to information by countries, intergovernmental organizations, civil society and the people. The right to information has been recognized as a fundamental human right, which upholds the inherent dignity of all human beings. Moreover, the Right to Information Act is for the smooth functioning of the government by maintaining transparency between the government working and the public who are the beneficiaries. In nutshell it can be said that this piece of legislation is unique in many aspects. It entitled the citizen to know the details of governance subject to certain limitations. It will further reduce the gap between the rulers and ruled.
