2013 Save RTI Movement in India

Save RTI is a movement in India to protest against Government’s effort to amend the Right to Information Act (RTI) act to keep political parties out of its ambit.

Background

Mr. Anil Bairwal of the Association of Democratic Rights (ADR) filed an RTI application in October, 2010 and sought names and addresses of voluntary donors from six political parties – the Congress, the BJP, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the CPI, the CPI (M) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) which are classified as national by the Election Commission. Mr. S. C. Agrawal, an RTI activist, also filed a similar RTI application. However Congress and BJP declined to respond to the RTI query claiming they were outside the purview of the RTI. The RTI applicants then filed complaints before the Central Information Commission (CIC).

CIC ruled on June 3, 2013 that the six national parties are public authorities who now need to respond to RTI queries. The decision was based on three points, that is, substantial funding received by the parties from government, performance of public duty by them and legal provisions vesting them with rights and liabilities.

The government brought RTI Amendment Bill in Parliament on August 12, 2013 for exempting Political parties from the Act’s ambit. 

The Protest

Demonstrations 

RTI activists held a day long protest for the cause on August 16, 2013 at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. Before that Aaam Aadmi Party (AAP) supporters had protested at the Prime Minister’s residence on August 5, 2013 and several of them had been detained for the same. Around 3000 auto-drivers in Chennai held a march against the proposed RTI amendment. A group of RTI activists and AAP members staged a protest on August 12, 2013 at Balgandharva Rangmandir, Pune. A small group of Indian Americans had a sit-in protest outside Indian embassy in Washington. Several such demonstrations happened at other places as well.

Petitions

National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) met the Prime Minister on August 19, 2013 to submit one hundred thousand signatures to a petition seeking deferring the amendments.

An online petition to the Prime Minister at change.org created by NCPRI for SaveRTI campaign received about one hundred thousand signatures. Similarly, Common Wealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) petitioned to Meira Kumar, speaker of Loksabha, and an activist Navin C petitioned to Narendra Modi, the most prominent leader of the opposition party at the same website for the cause. 

Social Media And Call-A-Thon

The hash tag #SaveRTI trended high in several cities of India on Twitter for a few days. Users of the social networking site were using this tag to tweet against the RTI amendment. Facebook also witnessed several posts with the hash tag.

Scores of NRIs settled in the US initiated a unique Call—A—Thon to Indian MPs, requesting them to save the RTI Act. They used to directly call the MPs on phone for appealing them to vote against the amendment. Around 30 BJP MPs told on phone that they are against the amendment in principle but their stand will be decided only by the party.

Eminent Citizens And Some Parties Oppose the Amendment

A group of eminent citizens, including former Delhi High Court Chief Justice A P Shah, former Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramanian, former Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi, RTI activist Venkatesh Nayakand former Mumbai Police Commissioner Julio Ribeiro  appealed to MPs not to vote for any bill which exempts political parties from the ambit of the RTI Act. Former chief election commissioner T S Krishnamurthy also opposed the amendment.

Biju Janata Dal, Trinamool Congress and National Conference parties have opposed the move to keep the political parties out of ambit of RTI.

Arguments For The Amendment And Their Rebuttal

Some parties have argued that they give all necessary information to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and income tax authorities, and citizens can get it from there. However activists have been denied the information by the ECI as well saying the parties are private bodies. Also the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has discovered from the IT returns of the parties that sources of only 20 per cent of their total income, on average, were disclosed in the IT returns. The sources of the balance 80 per cent remain shrouded in mystery. Another argument is that RTI can be used to force the parties to disclose their strategic deliberations. However this is not genuine because RTI can be used to seek only recorded information and parties generally do not maintain record of their strategic meetings.

The Bill Deferred

The Bill to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005,to keep political parties out of its ambit, was on September 3, 2013 deferred to the Winter Session of Parliament. The Bill may now be sent to the Standing Committee of Parliament for larger consensus. However the activists don’t see this as a relief because the government has already expressed its commitment for the amendment.