 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I'm Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha and with me here I have Anjali Mahardwaj. Anjali is a social activist. She's been working towards strengthening the implementation of the Right to Information Act for quite a few years now. She happens to be a co-convener of the national campaign for the people's right to information and a founding member of the Satark Nagarik Sangatan. Anjali, Dhaniwad, Nihani ke liye. The Right to Information Act 2005 replaced the Freedom of Information Act which was enforced till three years earlier. And this was supposed to be quote-unquote a very practical regime to enable citizens to obtain information from public authorities so that there would be greater transparency and accountability so that those who are in positions of power and authority, the way they worked would be transparent. Now over the years we've seen various attempts have been made to dilute the effectiveness of this act. Yet this act remains a very, very important act. In the first ten years of its existence over a 17.5 million applications have been filed. Every day over 4,800 applications are filed and if I remember correctly, roughly 6 million applications are filed in a year. So if I ask you to give a broad overview, how has it been implemented and what according to you are the main shortcomings in the implementation of this act? So the first thing is that the Right to Information Law, the demand for it came from people, from people who recognized the link between their ability to access information from the government and their ability to access their other rights and entitlements. So it's a very important law, very important tool in the hands of the people which empowers them to hold the government accountable. And research has shown that like you said about 6 million RTI applications are being filed every year in the country. This is the highest globally. And most of the research that the Right to Information Law is using is being done by the people living in Hashi, the people who are the closest to the end, because they don't get the rights of their ration, pensions, roads, water, electricity, whenever they are given the right to access information, or they don't get the rights due to anonymity. So the Right to Information Law, by asking for the right to access information, they struggle and hold the government accountable. And it's proven to be really very empowering for the common person of this country and which is why there is such a vibrant use of this law in the country. And it's not just the poorest and the most marginalized using this law to hold the government accountable for day-to-day rights and entitlements. May I just interrupt you? When this law started, it was believed that it was largely being used by the bureaucrats, by government officials, their transfers, their postings, their promotions, their salaries. But you are saying in the recent past, the poor and the marginalized, that for them this act has become that much more important, because as you rightly said, it concerns their basic entitlements, whether it be food, whether it be Shiksha or Swasth. So do we see this as a positive change that has taken place in the recent past? So Paranjoy, I would say that this is not a change. This is, like I said, this was the reason why the law was demanded by people and they have continued to use it like that. And like I was saying, it's not just for their basic rights that people are using this law, but they are also using it to hold the highest offices in the country accountable. So whether it's the Prime Minister and people are asking about his educational qualifications. I haven't received it yet. I haven't received it yet, but I am asking you. So you are asking about the education qualifications. People are asking about the foreign travels of the Prime Minister, people are asking about the judges of the Supreme Court, their assets and liabilities, people are asking about information related to who are the corporate loan defaulters in public sector banks. So people are really holding the highest offices to account through the RTL law. And that is the reason why we've seen such a huge backlash in terms of the government's successive governments reacting to people using this law. Because this law came, I'm not even sure that it was the potential and the power of it was recognized and realized earlier. And very soon we had a backlash which has taken several forms. What you have described is one of those forms where there's almost been a myth creation where even successive Prime Ministers like the previous Prime Minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh also said that the law has been misused. There are frivolous and vexatious RTI applications. There have been senior officials in the governments who have said that mainly it's being used by the bureaucrats. But there's been nothing to back their statements. In fact, evidence like I said has shown that it has been used by the underprivileged, by the ordinary citizen of the country to hold the government accountable for various delivery of various services and to hold them accountable. Anjali, in the just concluded monsoon session of parliament, the amendment bill, the bill to amend the RTI Act of 2005 was not introduced. Now organizations such as the one you work with, they opposed it. And you argued that this bill fundamentally weakens the autonomy of the Information Commissions, the Central Information Commission, the State Information Commissions, the Information Commissioners. Why? Because in terms of salaries, allowances, the retirement age at 65, government said they've been put on power with the Election Commission of India. But why did you argue that this bill, which hasn't yet, it's not law yet, sort to, I mean, why, how do you argue that this is some way diluted the autonomy of the Information Commissions, the Central and the State Information Commissions? Right, so if one looks at the current structure of the law at the moment, basically if one doesn't get the one's information that one is seeking as a citizen, the ultimate adjudicator under the right to information law are the Information Commissions. So one can go in for an appeal or a complaint to the Information Commission and it's the job of the Information Commissions to function independently and whether the government likes it or not, whether that information is inconvenient or embarrassing for the government to disclose. That includes the Prime Minister's educational qualifications. It would include that, it would include a host of other things. The Information Commissions have the power to direct the government to give this information to people, which is what we have seen happen, even in the case of the educational qualification of the Prime Minister where the Central Information Commission actually directed the Delhi University to provide the necessary requisite documents. And finally what has happened to that? So to just finish this, now the point is that the right to information law is really a decentralized use of the law. There's no way to control who asks for what information. The way the government is trying to control information accessed by citizens is by trying to control the Information Commissions because they feel that if they can somehow make sure that commissions don't function independently, they cannot give the information that they don't want to give up. What does this go to do? I mean there are two questions. What has happened to the application about the Prime Minister's educational qualifications? That's one question. And the next one is I'm still not convinced why by putting the salaries and allowances of the Information Commissions on par with the counterparts in the Election Commission of India, how this would dilute the autonomy? So at the moment under the law the salaries of the Information Commissioners are at par with the Election Commissioners. This is already happening. You are changing the government. The government is saying that the central government will decide what their salaries will be. The central government will decide how much their employment will be. So under the law, it is written that the employment period of 5 years is subject to a retirement age of 65 years and the salaries are not left to the government to decide. The salaries are pegged at the level of the Election Commissioners which is the same as that of a Supreme Court judge. Now which is decided by Parliament? So the government doesn't come in. The central government doesn't come in at all. By bringing in these amendments what the government is trying to do is to control the functioning of the commissions by it's actually putting, you know, it's an attempt to dilute their autonomy because if you're basically, let's say, let's take a scenario where the government says that you'll have a one year time frame which will be renewable, which means that if you give inconvenient orders then it will not be renewed. So you're saying the Information Commissioners, the government can choose to either reward them or penalize them indirectly. It could become a way to do that and which is what will compromise their autonomy because they're trying to effectively make commissions work like government departments and that is something which would completely weaken the information law. The other question on the educational qualifications of the Prime Minister, actually the RTI applicant sought information on the results, result-related information of the 1978 batch. The Prime Minister in his election affidavit has written that he graduated in the year 1978 from the Delhi University. There seems to be the records at this point of time not being made available. The applicant was not given the information. The matter was agitated in the Central Information Commission and the Commissioner there ordered the Delhi University to give the information. Immediately the Delhi University has gone and approached the Delhi High Court and the plea that has been taken is that the privacy of those who studied and graduated in that year will be adversely impacted. Now it completely defies logic because the Delhi University holds a public convocation. So everybody's results whether they passed or failed are actually put out in the public domain. There is a wide webcast, telecast of this convention. So we don't understand where the privacy argument is coming from. And what about the educational qualifications of the former Minister for Human Resources Development, the current Textiles Minister, Smriti Irani? It's the same situation there as well. It's the matters being agitated in the Delhi High Court. Now your organization has argued that since the Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014 there has been not a single fresh appointment of an Information Commissioner without the intervention of the court. Kindly explain what is the situation as far as vacancies at the Central Information Commission and the State Information Commission are. What is the present status and the backlog of the applications that remain pending? Like I said, the efficacy of the right to information law really depends on how well Information Commissions are functioning. If they don't have the right to think about it, and they go to the Commission, then their appeal complaint should immediately be removed. Otherwise, you should think that there is a woman who is asking for her pension and she goes to the Commission and has to wait for her for 10 years. So when she gets to think about it, she doesn't have any work to do. Doesn't the law says that there is a deadline? That the answer has to come within 30 days. And in the case of the intelligence agencies and the security agencies, the paramilitary bodies, that is 45 days? Yes, the law is very clear in terms of timelines for provision of information. So if as a citizen I file an information application, I'm supposed to get my information ordinarily within 30 days. However, if I don't get the information, I have to go in for a two-stage appeal. The first appeal is within the department, which is usually not very effective. And the second appeal is with the Information Commissions, which are independent bodies. Now these independent Information Commissions are supposed to quickly turn around and give me my direction so that I can access my information. But they are bogged down by backlogs. Backlogs in many cases. And what we are seeing is that the government's successive governments have found, state governments and central governments have found that one effective way of actually sort of making sure that the commissions don't function well is to not appoint commissioners. What is the backlog of cases pending and what are the vacancies in these commissions? Yes, so if we look at the Central Information Commission, for example, at the moment there are more than 25,000 backlogs, pendencies, so there are at least 25,000 appeals and complaints that are waiting with the commission to be disposed of. In the meantime, from... 25,000 at the level of the Central Information Commission alone. And if you put all the state Information Commissions... They would run into lakhs. Now if you look at the Central Information Commission from December 2016 onwards, when the first vacancy arose because it was one of the Information Commissioners retired, till today there are now four vacancies in the Central Information Commission out of a total of 11 commissioners. Four out of 11? Yes. And in the states? And so with the Central Information Commission, four more vacancies are coming up by the 1st of December, including the Chief Information Commissioner who's going to retire. Which would mean that there would be eight vacancies out of 11 Unless these are filled up. Unless these are filled up. And the government is not showing any intention of filling them, they haven't filled even a single one. And you said unless there is an intervention by the court? Not a single vacancy has been filled by this government in the last four and a half years, unless there is an intervention by the courts. And again the matter has been agitated in the Supreme Court. It's being heard by the Supreme Court where the court has directed that these vacancies must be filled. Even in the states we have a huge problem in Andhra Pradesh ever since the bifurcation into Andhra Pradesh and Telangana took place. There's not been a single commissioner that has been appointed in the State Information Commission of Andhra Pradesh. So it's not just the government of India, the Union government or the Central government but the state governments are equally guilty of not filling up these positions. Absolutely. Before we move ahead, one step back, what is the present status of the RTI Amendment Bill? It was not introduced in Parliament but that means if the government wishes to, it can introduce it again in another session of Parliament. It can be the same bill, it could be a different bill. Absolutely. The bill was brought in without any public consultation at all. What would they say? Pre-legislative consultation. Did not take place at all. The bill was sprung upon people. So to speak when and even now it has not been put in the public domain. It was circulated amongst members of Parliament. So someone gave it to you? Someone gave it to you? Yes, someone gave it to me. So the website? The website? The bill is not even on the website. There was no consultation. Now people are being suppressed and I want to say that it is not the first time that the amendment has been tried in the law but it is definitely the first time that it has been done without any discussion or any consultation. Even before when the amendments have been tried people have opposed it and this time there were strong public protests against these amendments and the government has deferred the introduction in Parliament but it could happen. It could happen in the next session of Parliament. It could even be brought in as an ordinance if the government so wishes. Or introduced in the Rajya Sabha. The intention from what we understand where it was listed in Parliament was to introduce it in the Rajya Sabha which would mean that it would not lapse even when the Lok Sabha is dissolved for elections. All right. Anjali, two or three other questions that I want to ask you. According to the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative there have been over 300 cases, instances of activists using the Right to Information Act who have been attacked, who have been threatened and in these last 13 odd years there have been recorded over 70 cases of murders to suicides which appear to be linked directly to the facts that the individuals who've died unnaturally were using the RTI Act. What does this tell you about our society and you talk about transparency and you talk about accountability of public servants? The first thing is that with the coming in of the Right to Information Law the definition of a whistleblower has undergone a huge change. So today potentially we have 1.3 billion people who are potentially whistleblowers in our country because every citizen has the right to access government records which earlier used to only be accessible to government officials. And as a result of that since the RTI law has come and has been used by people information is coming out and people who are exposing corruption they are ruffling the feathers of vested interests powerful vested interests they have been attacked, they have been threatened they have been many many more than just the 300 who have been accounted for and yes more than 70 people have even lost their lives. Now what is really happening is that the RTI law is being used by the ordinary citizens of the country to expose corruption which earlier people had no way. Abuse of power, misuse of authority. Abuse of power, misuse of authority of all sorts of inefficiencies in government but also a great deal of corruption that's happening at various levels and we know that in our country it's down to the lowest level that corruption happens. So people for example just last month there were at least 3 killings in Bihar itself. Rajendra Singh for example in East Champaran district was asking for information related to the public distribution system you know exposed corruption in the appointment of teachers in his village. Similarly Balmiki Yadav was beaten to death with rods because he asked for information which again exposed corruption in Narega and other things. And of course we have known about the Manjunath's case there's actually been even a feature film made on it Shatinder Dhube among others. So it has actually become a if you want to be an activist using the RTI Act life could be very very risky and dangerous for you. Yes it would certainly the figures show that and we are seeing that there is a constant threat there are attacks on people who are using the RTI law and there is a clear need I mean I believe that there is a moral obligation on the government today to provide protection to these people because after all they are doing a great service to society by exposing corruption where it's happening. Anjali ji you have talked about whistleblowers protection this law the whistleblowers protection act it was introduced in 2011 and 4 years later sorry 3 years later in 2014 it was passed by both houses of parliament. But till today the rules that should be with the law haven't come yet. So what's the point of enacting this law? No one has any benefit. It remains an act on paper am I correct? You are absolutely right. And in fact in order to pass this law in 2014 the people who were the RTI users they did it for 25 days the whistleblowers who had been killed their families came to the parliament and made a whistle then this law passed in both houses of the south but till today the rules that should be with the law haven't been promulgated. In fact what the government has done is that they have brought in an amendment bill in the parliament which has been passed by the Lok Sabha which severely dilutes the whistleblowers protection law Explain how it has done. So one of the things that the law states is that it gives immunity to whistleblowers from action under the official secrets act. So if as a whistleblower I were to file a complaint even if it has certain information which would not be allowed to be made public under the official secrets act. Which is an old act of 1923. It's a colonial act, draconian colonial act I would get immunity as a whistleblower under the law. Now the government has brought in amendments to take away that immunity which basically means that if it is proven that it violates the official secrets act the disclosure or the complaint that a whistleblower has made then they could go to jail for up to 14 years. Now that basically kills the whole purpose of a law because even bona fide whistleblowers will be worried about coming forth. The other thing that the law has done the amendment bill has done is that it kind of conflates the right to information law and the whistleblower law. It says that unless certain information which is exempt under the RTI unless there is public interest and so on unless that information is obtained under the RTI law it cannot be used by a whistleblower. So that means you are actually diluting the whistleblowers protection. Absolutely because you are thinking so many government officials they don't need to file an RTI application to access information. They have files in front of them. If you can't give them security then this law doesn't have any benefit for such people. Satyendra Dubey and Manjuna you have mentioned about them. What was the need for them? They were part of the government and they in fact should be encouraged people like that to come forth and file a complaint. So the government is actually confusing the right to information law is meant to put information in the public domain whereas what the whistleblowers are doing they are filing a complaint within the government it's not even making it public. Anjali ji you also have talked about you know why the government had once introduced a grievance redressal bill but then not reintroduced it. Kindly explain why this bill together with the right to information act and the whistleblowers protection act is important. Well the NCPRA had advocated for a set of anti-corruption laws which included the Lokpal law which again got passed by both houses of parliament it's today law but hasn't been implemented not a single Lokpal has been appointed till date by the government. Certain states have appointed Lokayukta and many states have not. Some states already had Lokayuktas and the Lokpal which was awaited at the centre has not become operational because no appointments have been made by the central government. The whistleblowers protection law like we just discussed hasn't been operationalised. The third law which was very important was the grievance redress law because if we see even in the right to information act the people who are asking for information are asking for such information because the government doesn't work so if someone complains that I am not getting ration and I am not getting pension then their complaint goes into a cool box no one is responsible for it no time bound redress happens so this law was basically to ensure that when somebody files a complaint whether it is of corruption or it is of any other kind of annimita in the government's functioning then immediately a time bound manner redress is complaint is redress this law came in parliament and the Standing Committee had a very good report between 2012 and 2014 with 2014 the bill lapsed when people got elected and the Indian People's Party had said that we will reintroduce this bill where did they say it? in Ghoshnapatra they said on the floor of the house Arunjaitali Ravi Shankar Prasad said that this bill is very important we will bring it the letters of the Prime Minister this is our priority we will bring it because we want to fix the service delivery but that law has not come yet but your organization believes it should but that has been resisted why do you all persist in wanting to know what's happening within these political parties and why do you think it's important because cutting across political lines they believe this would be an interference in their internal working or functioning well it's not just them a lot of bodies who have been declared public authorities under the right to information act have believed that the right to information is an interference because we have the government is used to working in a certain way which isn't necessarily transparent and suddenly an ordinary citizen turns up and wants to know and wants to question because that's really what the right to information act is guaranteeing and we see this resistance from included under the ambit of the RTL law but the law is very clear one party I think was different the communist party of India well they did say that they would have no problem in disclosing their funds but they also resisted being called public authorities under the law and being brought under its ambit now the point here is that the law is very clear the law states that anybody who gets substantial funding from the government and therefore uses substantial funding for example political parties get land they get tax concessions they get buildings, they get airtime if you are a private entity if you are a non-government organization I think if I one of the court judgments said that only 95% of your infrastructure funds have come from the government then only do you become should you be considered to be a public authority actually the supreme court judgment that you are referring to for instance it did not define 95% as the cutoff so it said that for example if there are 95% but it did not preclude a smaller percentage the idea is very simple and it is really the spirit behind the law which is that if anybody is using public funds people have a right to know what they are doing so either don't use public money or come under the law last question you are a common man what advice would you give the ordinary person of how she or he could utilize this law? people are using public funds so I think the power of this law is that people are recognizing how much money people are spending on public funds people are recognizing how much money can be taken and it is important that people use this law and in different departments in different public authorities apply, go to commission don't leave the process and use the money and I think nobody needs any advice as we are talking that in the whole world the right to use this law how many times people have tried to amend this law people have fallen on the streets people have opposed it and this is the need that people bring this law because they are using it and protecting it that's the only way this very important democratic right will actually thrive in our country thank you very much Anjali for giving us your time and giving us your views on how the information act its implementation can be strengthened and made more effective you've just heard and watched Anjali Bhardwaj RTI activist thank you very much for being with us keep watching news click