Activists and people from various walks of life on Sunday staged a protest against the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 Bill passed last month by both the Houses of Parliament, a legislation that empowers the Union Government to fix tenures and the salaries of information commissioners.
At a meeting held the Air India Modern School of Kalina in north Mumbai, the participants adopted a resolution to fight against the RTI amendment "at all levels".
The participants, including former Union Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi and activist Anjali Damania, decided to go public and organise a movement against the RTI amendment bill.
Gandhi said that the changes made in the original RTI Act without the necessity were wrong and that the Government was not giving “concrete answers” as to why it had amended the Act.
Anjali Damania said that after the amendment, “ the battles have started and now we need to fight the battle at all levels”. RTI activist Anil Galgali said that the government made changes in the Constitution by ignoring the provisions and rules. “The government is a conducting a new experiment to put pressure on the Information Commissioners directly so that people cannot exercise their right to information,” Galgali said.
AAP spokesperson Preeti Memon Sharma charged that the amendment had been made so that the Government could control the Information Commissioners by giving them post retirement benefits “In effect, the right to information environment is being destroyed,” she said.
Senior journalist Hemant Desai said that the Centre was resorting to politics using Enforcement Directorate and CBI, while another journalist Ravindra Ambekar said that it was wrong to expect anything from the politicians by the people.