Serious relook at RTI Act required

Effective implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act is proving to be a daunting task in Uttar Pradesh even after a decade of its coming into force.

With the load of pending cases and complaints of misuse of the Act, the general belief that the Act needs to be amended to give it more teeth gains a very firm ground. A thorough review of some vital provisions of the Act appears to be the need of the hour. Giving more autonomy to information commissions, making PIOs and first appeal authorities follow the law in letter and spirit and plugging the sources of misuse of the Act can ensure a more people-friendly, smooth and free-wheeling regime in coming years. More than 90% of cases pending with information commissions are complaints registered under Section 18 of RTI Act. Second appeals are very few. This is precisely for two reasons: Firstly, State Public Information Officers (SPIOs) continue to ignore most of the applications which are filed with them for seeking information. Not only this, in a number of public authorities, SPIOs have been reduced to helpless creatures. In early days of the State Information Commission’s (SIC), then chief secretary (CS) Navin Chandra Vajpayee ordered that only officers of special secretary rank would be appointed as PIOs but this was changed after a number of officers objected to it. After Shambhunath took over as CS, he ordered that officers of under-secretary level or even jun-

MORE THAN 90% OF PENDING CASES ARE COMPLAINTS REGISTERED UNDER SECTION 18 OF RTI ACT

ior to them would be SPIOs. So, even section officers and clerks took over. The result was obvious. Seniors as well as subordinates ignored the SPIOs, making it very difficult for them to collect information from their departments. This is high time the 2006 order in this regard is restored. Some suggestions:

SECTION 4: The state government should appoint a designated officer to oversee that suo motto declaration of all vital information of the authority under section 4 of the RTI Act is complied with and regularly updated.

APPELLATE AUTHORITY: Making the first appellate authority function had been a challenging task before the commission. To make it happen, the following clause may be added after section 19 (1) dealing with appeals:

Provided further that for the purpose of any contravention of this clause, such officer, (FAA) shall be treated as a State Public Information Officer, as the case may be.

MISUSE: The best way out is to straightaway accept the recommendation of Moily Commission in this regard. The Commission while making the recommendation has made sufficient safeguards against misuse of the provision by the SPIOs.

(The writer is a former SIC.)