Who invented rti in india

It was in the early years of living and working with people in rural Rajasthan that many important questions kept arising persistently, asking to be addressed. What justification could be given to the continuing oppression of the poor by a deliberate denying of basic rights?

When groups resisted or protested against corruption and the arbitrary use of power, they faced police action and state violence. A timid citizenry allowed the illogic to ride freely, anxious not to face the ire of those wielding power.

Truth is a dense word and needs unpacking to see where and in which context it becomes both meaningful and useful. We were bemused. Truth, we were told, is absolute, how then could there be versions, could there be variations? In the interface with the system, facts mattered and they were hidden from people. Th e RTI was defined by the people through allegory and parable. Somewhere in their definitions lies truth, logic and common sense.

RTI kaun laya? Who brought RTI to India? For that many can claim credit. It was one of the very first campaigners for such a concept. Sonia Gandhi, to the Prime Minister's Office. CHRI's summary of the Bill was also produced.

A range of civil society activists also gave evidence before the Committee. With presidential assent, the Central Government and State Governments had days to implement the provisions of the Bill in its entirety.

The Act formally came into force on 12 October The formal recognition of a legal right to information in India occurred more than two decades before legislation was finally enacted, when the Supreme Court of India ruled in State of U. Raj Narain that the right to information is implicit in the right to freedom of speech and expression explicitly guaranteed in Article 19 of the Indian Constitution.

Subsequently, the Court has affirmed this decision in numerous cases , and has even linked the right to information with the right to life enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution.

With presidential assent, the Central Government and State Governments now have days to implement the provisions of the Bill in its entirety. The Act covers all Central Government, State Government and local bodies, as well as some private bodies. The Government of India has notified a new set of Rules combining the Rules relating to fees and costs payable under the Right to Information Act and the appeals procedure before the Central Information Commission which were notified in The new set of rules makes a few substantive changes in the applications and appeals procedure.

For example, an RTI applicant will be required to limit an information request to words and pay for postal charges in excess of Rs. A letter of appeal filed with the Central Information Commission may be returned to the appellant if it contains filing deficiencies described in the new Rules. Reclaiming the state through the expression of constitutional rights and regaining democratic institutions was an important first shift.

This dealt with the primary step of engaging with parts of the state, and understanding this engagement not as a co-option but asserting the right to be part of the process of decision-making. Representative democracy had to a great extent betrayed its promise to deliver. Though necessary, its failure to be accountable to people — beyond the vote — was underscored again and again.

The Urban Development Minister Ram Jethmalani issued an order using the Supreme Court Constitution bench decisions that held that the citizens have the right to get information about all aspects of government functioning. He had also insisted that anything available to Members of Parliament must be available to citizens. It was the same clause that N. The Sawant draft was put through many committees in and outside the government.

The H. Shourie Committee, with one nongovernment person who was named the chair, sent its watered-down recommendations. Justice Sawant, Ajit Bhattacharjea and others from the first group of drafters of the bill, as well as political representatives, participated in a conference in the National Institute of Rural Development NIRD , Hyderabad. As pressure grew with a writ filed in the Supreme Court, the bill was hastily placed in parliament in June It was passed as the FOI Act in under duress, and was weak and watered down.

The law was not even notified, without which it cannot be used by the citizens. The State Laws The passage of the state laws and their usage did two things. It educated people about the right to access information. It was a demand that resonated across the country in its principles, but the legal formulation and the tool it provided had to be understood. The fact that the state laws came before the central law made it possible to know where the fault lines existed in the different state laws formulated across India.

People came up with sound suggestions and a good critique of the law from across the country. One important critique that led to the strengthening of the RTI Act was that without a penalty provision, information would be delayed indefinitely or at times even denied. The case of Janawad in Rajasthan is a case in point. However, there were innumerable examples across India to support this argument.

Apart from the factors of exemptions and applicability, the proposed Freedom of Information Bill, , falters on the significant counts of penalties for non-compliance and an independent appeal mechanism.

All the other state Acts like Goa, Karnataka and Rajasthan provide for some penalty. The Rajasthan RTI Act provides for disciplinary action under service rules, whereas Goa and Karnataka subject the erring official to discretionary monetary fines apart from disciplinary action under service rules.

We propose that mere disciplinary action under service rules would not be effective enough against an erring official as demonstrated repeatedly in the case of other kinds of routine dereliction of duty by the government staff.

This is because a fixed amount would lose its value after some time as money tends to lose value over a period of time.