2019 – Posted in: Daily News – Tags: right to information

BILL TO AMEND THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT

For: Preliminary & Mains

Topics covered: Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 – HIghlights, scope, governance and process

News Flash

A Bill to give the Centre the power to set the salaries and service conditions of information commissioners was introduced by the government and passed in Lok Sabha.

It seeks to amend the landmark transparency law and bring in changes involving the salaries and tenures of Information Commissioners (ICs) at the States and Centre.
The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019, was to correct certain anomalies in the RTI Act and not dilute the Act in any way.
The amendment would strengthen the overall RTI structure and be enabling legislation for administration purposes.

Background

In 2005, the RTI Act overlooked a lot of things.
The Central Information Commissioner has been given the status of a Supreme Court judge but his judgments can be challenged in the high courts. How can that exist?
The RTI Act did not give the government rule-making powers.

Highlights

According to the Bill, the term of offices, salaries, and allowances and other terms and conditions shall be “as prescribed by the Central Government”.
In the present form, Section 13 (5) of the Right to Information Act provides that salaries, allowances and other terms and conditions of the service of the Chief Information Commissioner shall be the same as that of the Chief Election Commissioner while that of an Information Commissioner shall be same as that of an Election Commissioner.
The amendment states that the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners have salaries of a Supreme Court judge, which brings Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners on a par with apex court judges.
The functions being carried out by the Election Commission of India and the Central and State Information Commissions are totally different.
Election Commission of India is a Constitutional body.
Central Information Commission and State Information Commission are statutory bodies established under the Right to Information Act, 2005.

Right to Information

The right to Information Act 2005 mandates timely response to citizen requests for government information.
The basic objective of the Right to Information Act is to empower the citizens, promote transparency and accountability in the working of the Government, contain corruption, and make our democracy work for the people in real sense.
The Act is a big step towards making the citizens informed about the activities of the Government.

Scope

The Act covers the whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir, where J&K Right to Information Act is in force.
It covers all the constitutional authorities, including executive, legislature and judiciary; any institution or body established or constituted by an act of Parliament or a state legislature.
Private bodies are not within the Act’s ambit directly.

Governance and Process

The Right to information in India is governed by two major bodies:
Central Information Commission (CIC) – Chief Information commissioner who heads all the central departments and ministries- with their own public information officers (PIO)s. CICs are directly under the President of India.[9]
State Information Commissions – State Public Information Officers or SPIOs head over all the state departments and ministries. The SPIO office is directly under the corresponding State Governor.

Source: Indian Express

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