A milestone in greater transparency, accountability

The launch of the Jan Soochna Portal in Rajasthan is a vital cog in access to the right to information

The Jan Soochna Portal (JSP) launched by the government of Rajasthan yesterday is a remarkable achievement in furtherance of the right to information (RTI) — especially Section 4 of the RTI Act — that deals with proactive disclosure of information. Transparency must be accompanied by accountability, and that is where the JSP has great value and significance since it places the power of making the State government accountable to everyone who accesses the information made available on the portal.

Has transparency accompanied by accountability brought about transformation in any system? During my association with the eCommittee of the Supreme Court of India, and keeping transparency in the justice delivery system in mind, a National Judicial Data Grid was launched. This gave information about all pending cases across the country. Some time back, a year-wise breakup of pending cases was given on the grid and it was found that more than 70,000 cases were pending for over 30 years. These figures meant nothing until the justice delivery system was asked to account for the enormous delay in such a large number of cases. Chief Justices and Registrars in many courts appreciated the fact that they needed to answer questions relating to such enormous delays; now many courts have begun to concentrate on the disposal of old cases with considerable success. This is a good example of transparency accompanied by accountability brought about by civil society.

Several access points

I had the privilege of a sneak preview of the JSP. Details of every activity of the government such as availability of food grains and ration shops and their distribution, implementation of various schemes and their beneficiaries and a variety of other information are available on a real-time basis virtually making it a Janta Information System. The portal has been arrived at through a regular and rigorous consultative process between government officials, IT professionals and civil society. Such a process of dialogue should be practised in all spheres to genuinely harness the benefits of information technology. Digital divide is indeed a serious problem in India. To bridge this, care should be taken to ensure that access points are open and free.

Since the information is available on the Internet, every citizen, right down to the municipal ward and panchayat, has access to the information. For example, I saw that on a random basis, a number of identified persons in a particular area had not availed themselves of any rations for several months. Such persons can be easily contacted and if they do not want to avail the benefits available to them, they can surrender it in favour of some other deserving person. Similarly, the government of Rajasthan, like some other States, has waived farmers’ loans. The portal gives the details of every farmer in every bank branch whose loans have been waived, along with the amounts. Another significant piece of information is about mining leases. Illegal mining has been a major issue in different parts of the country, with people unable to determine the details of clearances given. This portal gives the list of mines in every district, provides geographical coordinates, and the area where mining has been permitted, including the land deed identifiers. It also provides details about pollution and environment clearances. Finally, the portal provides details of production and royalties and taxes paid. This kind of information can facilitate a progressive partnership between government and citizens for a cleaner society.

What is important is that a tremendous amount of information is available on the files of the government of Rajasthan, which till date could only be accessed through the filing of RTI applications. However, with the use of technology and digitisation of records and information, this information is made freely available on the JSP. To this extent, there is no need for anyone to take recourse to the RTI Act and await a response. All information can be accessed immediately, free of cost.

Key challenges

The mere launch of the JSP is not enough. There are huge challenges with regard to maintenance issues and ensuring that there is no let-up in the availability of information. With this in mind, draft guidelines have been framed for the development and maintenance of the JSP. Once implemented, this will ensure that the information system continues uninterrupted. Various departments of the government of Rajasthan, called Line Departments, have been given a set of obligations that they are expected to fulfil. For example, they are expected to ensure digitisation of records. In addition, the Department of Information Technology will serve as the nodal department for the development, operationalisation and maintenance of the JSP.

This department has been informed of its obligations, which includes adherence to the norms and standards laid down by a digital dialogue advisory group. To ensure that the responsibilities are carried out, the advisory group will be the monitoring agency. Grievance redressal officers will be appointed so that citizens can make the State government truly accountable.

Training for citizens

The government of Rajasthan has also taken steps to train citizens so that they are aware of the facilities available. This by itself may not be enough. Therefore, it has been decided to host the JSP in decentralised locations, right down to the municipal ward and panchayat levels. They will have access to welfare schemes, revenue activities such as mining, and other service delivery issues such as health and education.

It would be wonderful if all other State governments follow the Rajasthan government’s initiative, which aims to make people, including the marginalised sections, a part of the governance process.

Justice Madan Lokur is a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India

Source: The Hindu, 14/09/2019

Decline in RTI queries & replies worries activists

Himanshi Dhawan

New Delhi





In a blow to transparency in governance, the number of RTI queries have declined as have the number of public authorities submitting data on the legislation.The annual report of the Central Information Commission (CIC) shows that a total of 7.55 lakh RTI applications were filed in 2014-2015, a decline of 79,000 since last year.Almost 90,000 RTI applications were pending decision at the start of the reporting year of 2014-15. Of the 2,030 public authorities registered with the CIC, only 75.27% submitted data on RTI for the year. This is much lower than 2012-2013, when of the 2,333 registered public authorities 79% submitted RTI returns.
The proportion of rejection of RTI applications has shot up by 1.2% in 2014-15. While only 7.20% of the RTI applications was rejected in 2013-14, this figure increased to 8.40% in 2014-15. “This is cause for worry and must be examined.On the face of it, this comparative figure appears to support the anecdotal experiences of many an RTI user that the public authorities under the government has begun rejecting more and more RTI applications under the NDA regime,'' Venkatesh Nayak, from CHRI who analysed the data said.
Data related to CIC is not encouraging either. The commisison received 35,396 appeals and complaints cases in 2014-15. It decided 20,181 cases during the year while 37,323 cases were pending before the CIC as on April 1, 2015.
CIC imposed penalties of over Rs 7 lakh on errant public information officers in 2014-15. This figure has come down by 61% since last year, when fines worth Rs 19.25 lakh were levied. However during 2014-15, the CIC recovered penalties better as compared to the previous year. It recovered Rs 11.31 lakh as compared to Rs 10.19 lakh which is about 10% higher.
Among the ministries and departments who have submitted information on RTI applications, the largest number have been filed with the finance ministry as it includes banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and tax authorities.The number of RTIs filed are about 1.4 lakh which has declined by 6%. The other public authorities that have fewer RTI applications as compared to last year are President's secretariat and ministry of external affairs.

Source: Times of India, 18-03-2016

RTI empowers the citizen, but threats can make Act opaque

After a decade of the implementation of the national Right To Information (RTI) Act, it is necessary to reflect on some of its key achievements and the threats it faces.

It has spread across the country, and there is no district that has not received RTI applications. It has empowered the ordinary citizen to get respect as an individual from the government and its officials. Citizens are becoming the monitors of their government. This year the number of RTI applications is likely to be over 6 million and the total number in the last decade may be over 25 million.

However, we should also consider the main threats to the RTI, which could lead to its regression. Most people in power develop a dislike for the RTI. Everyone pays lip service to transparency, but when it applies to their actions, there is a reluctance to share information. They forget that the citizen is sovereign in her own right. All positions in Parliament, the bureaucracy and the judiciary derive their legitimacy from ‘we the people’, who gave ourselves the Constitution. In the initial years of the RTI, public information officers gave information reasonably since the threat of personal penalty scared them. Now techniques have been evolved to deny information. The decisions of the information commissions and judiciary have also contributed to this.

Read: Modi bats for timely, transparent, trouble-free RTI replies

Another disturbing issue is the judiciary’s approach to transparency. The Supreme Court had declared that it is a fundamental right flowing from Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution, before the advent of the RTI Act in many landmark judgments. In the last five years it appears that the decisions of various courts are expanding the grounds on which information can be denied. Out of 16 apex court judgments analysed by this writer, only one gave an order to furnish information. This judgment had the following statement: ‘The Act should not be allowed to be misused or abused, to become a tool to obstruct the national development and integration, or to destroy the peace, tranquillity and harmony among its citizens. Nor should it be converted into a tool of oppression or intimidation of honest officials striving to do their duty.’ No evidence has been forthcoming for such a strong castigation of a fundamental right. The exemptions in the RTI Act are in line with Article 19 (2), which lists the reasonable restrictions that can be placed on the freedom of expression. Many judgments are expanding the exemptions, in a manner which is not in consonance with the law or the Constitution.

Read: A decade of RTI: All you need to know about the game changing law

Information commissions were created by the RTI Act to interpret and safeguard the RTI, but their performance has been largely unsatisfactory. They should be giving decisions within 2-3 months; instead many take over a year. Their own accountability is poor. Recently it has come to light that the Central Information Commission has been reducing its pendency figure by rejecting over 90% of appeals on technical grounds. The penalty provisions are used rarely, removing the fangs of the law. The solution lies in evolving a transparent process for selecting commissioners and getting the commissions to be transparent and accountable.

There is a possibility of a true democracy which can lead to good governance and respect for the citizen. Citizens must continue their efforts at spreading the usage and spirit of the RTI, and also to counter the threats. If citizens want a better future and governance they will have to take this responsibility.

Shailesh Gandhi is former central information commissioner

Source: Hindustan Times, 30-10-2015

RTI on my side

Today, India celebrates 10 years of the practice of the right to information. In this decade, this law, one critical to Indian democracy, has established the citizen’s right to make informed choices, not just once every five years, but every single day. Governments at the Central and state levels have been forced to concede to the democratic principle of sharing power. An estimated five to eight million applications are filed every year, making it clear how popular the law is. The more than 45 RTI users who have been killed bear testimony to just how much the act threatens vested interests. In posterity, those studying governance in independent India will be able to mark the patterns of a pre- and post-RTI era. It is, therefore, important to understand the immense contribution of the ordinary Indians who battled for years to get the entitlement and, since 2005, to implement the law. Powerful and relevant local struggles can organically grow into national movements that enrich democratic practice. The demand for information was brilliant in its simplicity. People honed it locally on the nerve centers of unaccountable power. These demands for details of expenditures on roads, of life-saving medicines in hospitals, of disappearing rations, sent shockwaves through the establishment and shook the foundation of bureaucratic governance. The RTI has proved its efficacy from the panchayat to Parliament. Cutting through red tape and bureaucratic prevarication, it has exposed entrenched vested interests in policymaking and implementation, and undermined officials’ impunity in perpetuating both grand and mass corruption. The modes of putting information to use in the public domain have been equally important. Jan sunwais evolved as a form of public accountability from a historic first hearing held in the village of Kotkirana in Pali district on December 2, 1994. The process of sharing information initially obtained through informal means and publicly verifying the evidence with local citizens galvanised people. The opposition grew in proportion, as when panchayat officials went on strike against transparency and public audits and elected representatives gave them support. It became clear that accessing information would need a sustained struggle and campaign. The campaign built an effective and popular discourse on the right to information, using slogans and songs to articulate and communicate. The slogan “hamara paisa, hamara hisaab” powerfully asserted people’s ownership over public money and resources. The late Prabhash Joshi highlighted another slogan in his editorial in the Jansatta in 1996, “hum janenge, hum jiyenge (the right to know, the right to live)”. The RTI so defined was seen and used as a transformative right. The straightforward logic of the struggle and campaign drew diverse groups into articulating the demand for a law. A 40-day dharna in Beawar in April 1996 led to the formation of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI). Set up with the twin objectives of drafting the law and supporting the use of the RTI by citizens’ groups, it circulated the first draft with the support of the Press Council of India in 1996. State laws began to be enacted in 1997, and continued to be in force till the national law was passed in 2005. The enactment of the RTI not only inspired a spate of other rights-based laws, but also embedded transparency and accountability within them. The structural design of social audits derived from public audits, or jan sunwais, is becoming a systemic part of democratic governance. Earlier this year, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India declared that social audits will be a part of the formal audit process. The mode of social audits is also spreading to other parts of the world. The RTI has been India’s most powerful “weapon of the weak”, enabling citizens everywhere to question and hold to account the legislature, executive and judiciary. They have exposed misdeeds by governments across the board, in the delivery of basic services, in land and mining, as well as grand corruption in arbitrary contracts, like in the allocations of 2G spectrum and coal blocks. With the current attack on rights-based laws and that framework, there are difficult times ahead. The few instances of obvious “misuse” by blackmailers and eccentrics have been blown out of proportion in an attempt to discredit the RTI. Governments have excelled in delays and manipulations in appointing information commissioners. The consensual (informal) decision by all political parties to ignore the orders of the information commission mandating their inclusion under the RTI has exposed the degree to which the establishment can go to brazenly undermine the rule of law. At one level, there is a sense of wonder that the law was enacted at all, defying prophecies that a corrupt system would never allow self-exposure. The truth is that the RTI did manage to build some statesmanship, and a consensus outside and in Parliament. Notwithstanding the implementation roadblocks, it is internationally acclaimed as amongst the strongest RTI laws in the world. The end of the first decade sees the RTI movement poised to fight battles for accountability — the passage and implementation of the grievance redress, whistleblowers’ protection and Lokpal legislation. The unfulfilled potential of people’s participation in the pre-legislative consultative process awaits parliamentary sanction. The unfinished promise of proactive disclosure under Section 4 of the RTI Act, the pendency in the commissions, the ever-looming threat of amendments, must keep the campaign alert to attacks to dilute the impact of the law. “RTI laga denge (we will file an RTI application)” has become one of the most popular refrains of the frustrated Indian facing the arbitrary exercise of power. In fact, it needs to be taken further. Much eventually depends on an alert and vocal people. The encouraging sign is that it seems like the argumentative Indian, who is now speaking truth to power, cannot and will not be gagged. The writers are social activists and founder members of the MKSS and the NCPRI -

Source: Indian Experess, 12-10-2015