Bill proposing changes relating to ranks, tenures and pay of information commissioners listed for monsoon session of Parliament.
New Delhi: The Modi government has proposed at least three major amendments to the Right to Information Act, a move termed as an assault on the transparency law by activists.
A bill proposing amendments to the act, listed in the monsoon session of Parliament starting Wednesday, includes changes relating to ranks, tenures and salaries and allowances of both central and state information commissioners.
If passed, the bill will enable the Centre to have a direct say in all the three provisions of the Act. While currently the law states that the tenure of the chief information commissioner and information commissioners — they are all part of the Central Information Commission — will be five years or up to the age of 65, the proposed amendments say that the tenure will be “for such term as may be prescribed by the central government”.
Further, Section 13(5) of the Act which states that “the salaries and allowances payable to and other terms and conditions of service of the chief information commissioner shall be the same as that of the chief election commissioner; an information commissioner shall be the same as that of an election commissioner,” will also be amended if the bill goes through.
The functions of the Election Commission of India and the central and state information commission are totally different, the bill points out. While the former is a constitutional body, the latter is a statutory one, it says.
“Therefore the mandate of the Election Commission of India and central and state information commissions are different. Hence, their status and service conditions need to be rationalised accordingly,” the bill states.
‘Final nail in the coffin’
Activists who have been highlighting the issue of soaring vacancies in information commissions over the past few years, claim that the amendments, if passed, would be the final nail in the coffin.
Describing the amendments as an assault on India’s arduously achieved transparency law, activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd) said “Information commissions will become nothing but another government department (if the amendments are passed).”
“That will be the end of the transparency law earned by our citizens in 2005,” he added.
Only last month, Batra, along with activists Anjali Bharadwaj and Amrita Johri, approached the Supreme Court seeking directions to the central government to ensure that appointment process for information commissioners is initiated at least four months before a post falls vacant.
At present three out of 10 positions in the Central Information Commission (CIC) — the final appellate authority for RTI appeals — are lying vacant. Last week, the top court had directed the Centre to fill the vacant posts within six weeks.
Power hungry goons want to control all the independent bodies be it EC. CBI, UGC, It and now RTI. Crushing the transparency and accountability to the public who elected them systematically..