”Five reasons why the Govt wants to dilute the Right to Information Act”

July 25, 2019

New Delhi:  The Rajya Sabha on Thursday passed the controversial Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 amidst uproarious scenes after an acrimonious debate and rejection of a strong opposition demand for referring to a select committee for detailed scrutiny.

Earlier, participating in the debate in the Rajya Sabha, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh cited five reasons behind the government’s move to “dilute” the Act. He also raised questions on the timing of bringing the amendments to the Bill which mandates timely response to citizen requests for government information.

“The timing of the amendment is not so innocuous and innocent. There are five cases that have propelled the government to bring these amendments,” he said noting five orders of Central Information Commissioner including on Prime Minister Modi’s educational qualification.

He said between 2003 and 2013, the then Chief Minister of Gujarat (Narendra Modi) would come to the Planning Commission and the body would ask him uncomfortable questions on the state of health and education in Gujarat.

“In 2014 the CM of Gujarat who became PM of India had his revenge and abolished the Planning Commission. Today, Prime Minister of India is taking his revenge with for these five cases,” he said.

The Five cases he mentioned to strengthen his case were CIC’s order on disclosure of Prime Minister’s educational qualification, false claims made by the Prime Minister on bogus ration cards, CIC’s revelation on demonetisation that RBI disapproved it, the then RBI Raghuram Rajan giving the list of top NPA defaulters and value of black money brought back from abroad.

“These are the embarrassing cases for the government. The case about his educational qualification in Delhi Court. The Prime Minister has claimed four crore bogus ration cards were weeded out by his government whereas the RTI shows that the number of bogus rations cards was actually 2.3 crore,” he said.

“The CIC directed the Prime Minister office about the quantum of black money brought back from abroad. The PMO refused to share the details despite CIC order,” he added.

The former union minister said that the real reason for the amendments in the Bill was to make the CIC “toothless” and to convert the information body to “Prime Minister office directed body”.

He also accused the government of giving misleading statements regarding its claim of strengthening the RTI Act and the CIC.

He also appealed to all the regional parties to stand against the Bill as the amendments were not in essence of cooperative federalism.

As the voting on the Bill was going on, the House witnessed some unruly scenes with the Deputy Chairman Harivansh repeatedly urging the members to maintain order in the House. The Opposition led by Congress staged a walkout alleging the government of “killing” democracy and the institutions.

Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad accused the treasury benches members to intimidate the opposition members before walking out of the House. “Don’t make the parliament a government department. They are killing democracy. We don’t have any faith on this government,” he said.

The Bill seeks to empower the Centre to make rules to decide the tenure, salary, allowances and other terms of service of Information Commissioners of the Central Information Commission and also of State Information Commissions.

Earlier, moving the bill, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Jitendra Singh clarified that the legislation is not intended to curtail the autonomy of RTI Act. When the House was taken up the Bill in the post-lunch session, it faced four brief adjournments.

The Opposition parties including Congress, Left, TMC, DMK, AAP and RJD demanded the government to refer the bill to the Select Committee for further scrutiny. Members from the Congress, TMC, CPI and CPI-M moved amendments in this regard urging the government to send the bill to the Parliamentary Committee. (ANI)