The Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005 has marked a move from opaqueness to the beginning of an era of transparency and it fundamentally restructures the debate on governance from what should be revealed to what must be kept secret, said former Vice-President Hamid Ansari at a three-day 5th National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) convention that began here on Saturday.
Ansari said twelve years after its enactment, the official view, as reflected in the latest annual report of the Central Information Commission, is reasonably satisfactory and, as per the reports of the State Information Commissions, paints a varied picture.
He said the perception within information providing agencies often is that much of demand is frivolous and vexatious. The civil society view, however, is that its implementation remains inefficient; and as a result, transparency and accountability seems to be under threat. Ansari also mentioned personal experience of a former Central Information Commissioner in which he divided the RTI applications into four categories, those who hope to expose corruption or arbitrariness and improve governance, those who wish to correct a wrong and get justice, those who wish to blackmail persons who have allegedly violated the law and those who wish to harass public officials to get undue favours. And the applications in the third and fourth categories did not exceed 10 per cent of the total, he added.
Former Delhi High Court Chief Justice AP Shah said that now an atmosphere of intolerance is prevailing in the country as regards free speech. The Government is trying to weaken the RTI Act and the Whistleblowers Act which would make it extremely difficult for the activists to expose corruption in the Government; and such a stance would also trample free speech. RTI activists from 18 States participated in convention with agenda workshops on transparency and accountability in Right to Food, RTI and Governance, Right to Education and using the RTI Act in conflict areas.A candlelight protest against attacks on RTI activists and whistleblowers in the country would be held on Sunday.