New Delhi, July 24
Former Chief Informer Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah and six former Information Commissioners of the Central Information Commission (CIC) on Wednesday expressed concern at the government’s move to amend the Right to Information Act and urged for its rollback.
The ICs are Shailesh Gandhi, Prof Sridhar Acharyuulu, Deepak Sandhu, MM Ansari, Yashovardhan Azad and Annapurna Dixit.
Addressing mediapersons, they alleged that the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which has been passed by the Lok Sabha, but yet to be passed by the Rajya Sabha, is ill-motivated. It was brought to Parliament without seeking public opinion in the matter. It seeks to amend the transparency law so as to change the salary and tenure of ICs at the state and Centre. “The dilution of the law will erode the independence of the ICs and the commission,” Habibullah said.
The former functionaries of commission debunked the government’s rationale that the changes were sought on ground that the posts of ICs were not constitutional, but statutory, like the EC.
RTI is a constitutional right, and the Supreme Court has also held similar view about it. The Commission relates to right to information, hence it was a Constitutional body. Countering the government’s logic, they reasoned that the Election Commission was a constitutional body only because it related to voting right of people to elect governments. Similarly, CIC is also a constitutional body and ICs hold constitutional post.
They raised question on government’s intention to dilute the autonomy of the commission on ground that more and more members from the public were seeking uncomfortable questions on issues relating to people at high offices, including PM. They cautioned that the Bill was liable to be challenged in court. “This government had been apathetic to appointment of Information Commissioners since 2014. It made appointments only after direction of the courts,” a former IC said. — TNS
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2XZk9gy
via Today’s News Headlines
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