The Dying Community Act!

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APower without discretion leads to tyranny. If there is no transparency in governance, corruption will prevail. Democracy fails where the people are not given the opportunity to question and scrutinize the functioning of the machinery. The Right to Information (RTI) Act was enacted two decades ago to prevent that threat. The statute, which came into force with the rule that any Indian citizen can provide any information that can be provided to the legislature, is now defunct, clarifying that the public is the real owner of information held by government departments. Since the beginning, the authorities have been poisoning the RTI because they are afraid that the foundations of their illegality will be shaken if the people know everything. Why are the Information Commissions which are supposed to protect the spirit of democracy while holding them accountable? Governments that do not make timely appointments of commissioners and even when they do, make a big deal out of them. With that, the information commissions, which are supposed to be bridges for public participation in governance, are becoming ineffective!  

Section 4(2) clearly states that the objective of the Act is to ensure that people resort to RTI as little as possible to obtain information. That is, the authorities should periodically provide as much information as possible to the citizens before anyone specifically requests it. It should also ensure that the details are easily and widely available to all in the language used locally. The authorities seeking this voluntary information disclosure have not responded properly to the applications filed. Although the law clearly states that information must be given within 30 days, many places do not follow that deadline. Despite the passing of years, the complete details sought by the applicants have not been sent. Pending cases are piling up due to vacancies in Information Commissions which are supposed to track down such law-abiding officers. According to the latest report of Satark Nagarik Sangathan, by the end of June this year, more than 3.85 lakh second appeals and complaints have remained unresolved in 28 state commissions along with the Central Information Commission. In AP and Telangana there are more than 27 thousand. Due to the fact that the cases are not filed quickly and there is no fear of having to pay a fine if the information is not given, the mechanism played in the implementation of RTI is paying off! 

The Civil Service Act seeks to remedy the defects in the delivery of public services, unmask the corrupt people who siphon off public funds, and prevent governments from taking arbitrary decisions that compromise the public interest. It is with that hope that the general public is mostly resorting to that law. But, if the unreasonable amendments are weakening the law on one hand, the growing intolerance of the leaders and officials against the questioners is on the other hand becoming dangerous for democracy. RTI will become a reality only when the wisdom of appointing competent and public service people from different fields as information commissioners is awakened in the governments. As long as that does not happen, all the words of the leaders about transparency, accountability and democratic values ​​will become empty! 

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