Anjali Bhardwaj

Watch | Electoral Bonds Was a Scheme to Strangle Democracy With: Kapil Sibal

‘No one donates to a political party without any reason,’ activist Anjali Bhardwaj said.

The Supreme Court delivered its verdict on Thursday, February 15, on petitions challenging the validity of the electoral bond scheme. A five-member constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had reserved its verdict in November last year, which was delivered by the court on Thursday.

The court stated that anonymous electoral bonds are a violation of the Article 19(1)(A). Additionally, the court ruled that electoral bonds violate the right to information, asserting that voters in the country should have information about those who donate to political parties. It is against the rules to withhold information about donors.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Supreme Court lawyer Kapil Sibal remarked, “The decision of the Supreme Court is historical. According to the Indian Constitution, every citizen of India has the right to know who has donated to which political party and how much.” Sibal further expressed concerns about the financial transparency of the Bharatiya Janata Party, suggesting that if the opposition comes together and raises this issue and makes it a national campaign, the opposition may benefit from this.

The Narendra Modi government introduced the electoral bond scheme in early 2018. Through this scheme, companies and individuals in India can make anonymous donations to political parties.

We spoke to social activist Anjali Bhardwaj on this issue.

She said, “No one donates to a political party without any reason. Whoever donates wants the political party to work for them. The common people need to know from whom and how much money the party is taking. But this Electoral Bond Scheme was an attack on the right to information.’ She further said that the Supreme Court has banned this scheme by declaring it unconstitutional. So, this is a victory for people’s right to information.”

RTI: Years of Information Disappears from Union Government Portal

Late on Thursday morning, the RTIOnline website started displaying a new message – that the website is “under maintenance” and so “archival data will be available soon”.

New Delhi: In what is a further shrinking in the ability of the Right to Information (RTI) to be used to nurture a climate of information, access and transparency in the country, The Hindu reports that records of lakhs of previous RTI applications have vanished from the Union government’s RTIOnline portal. An activist confirmed to The Wire that this amounts to “removing government orders.”

RTIOnline is the platform through which citizens can file for access to public information and record from the Union government. According to The Hindu, it has “viewed and verified samples of applications from two RTI activists, one of whom has had their entire account purged of information from before 2022.”

Chandra Shekhar Gaur, an RTI activist from Madhya Pradesh, told the newspaper that there was “a mismatch of several hundreds in his account.”

Srinivas Kodali, a digital rights activist and columnist on digital issues for The Wire also confirmed the disappearance. He told The Wire, “The RTI Online portal was being turned unusable by the government for the past few months with them stopping new registrations and even warning of deleting accounts that are not being used. Now All the RTIs filed prior to 2019 have been deleted from the server.”

He added that this was as serious as removing government orders. “There was no official intimation about it to any of the RTI portal users,” he said.

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), which administers the portal did not respond to a query from The Hindu on the missing data. However, late on Thursday morning, the RTIOnline website started displaying a new message – that the website is “under maintenance” and so “archival data will be available soon”.

Another senior rights and transparency activist Anjali Bhardwaj told The Wire, “This is an extremely regressive move. All RTIs and replies should have, in fact, been made public, as also mandated by the DoPT. It might be useful to understand if they have been deleted permanently or they are no longer accessible on the portal.”

The scale of the deletion on the portal “may be staggering” says The Hindu. It calculates that “the RTIOnline portal has processed over 58.3 lakh applications from 2013, when it was launched, to 2022. The number of applications filed has been growing steadily, with over 12.6 lakh applications filed in 2022.”

The report says that the site had been behaving sub-optimally and poorly in the past few weeks. The portal has “at least two periods of multiple days… lagged in speed and performance, and applications were not filed with authorities until days after users made a payment.”

The Right to Information Act, 2005 was a landmark law in India that empowered a citizen’s ability to demand public information and inverted the relationship of staid bureaucracies and opaque governments, opening them up to scrutiny. But ever since 2014, the ability to get information through applications, or in appeal, has been hampered by an air of unwillingness in the ruling establishment and often the non-appointment of Information Commissioners for years.

The passage of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill in the last session of parliament will amount to amending the RTI Act through the backdoor, experts have said. The Bill has since been signed into law. Earlier, “the larger public interest” justified the disclosure of personal information. Now, the new data Bill prohibits government agencies from sharing private information of any kind, regardless of the public interest it may entail.

Note: This article was updated at 2:25 pm on August 24 to reflect that the RTIOnline website now says it is ‘under maintenance’.

Personal Data Protection Bill Will ‘Severely Restrict Scope of RTI Act’: Activists Write to MPs

The National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information has written to MPs highlighting concerns regarding the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, which is likely to be introduced in the upcoming monsoon session of parliament.

New Delhi: The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill seeks to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act by “severely restricting its scope”, and seeks to give “wide discretionary powers” to the Union government both in rulemaking and vis-à-vis the oversight body, said National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI) in a letter to members of parliament.

The NCPRI has written to MPs highlighting concerns regarding the DPDP Bill, which is likely to be introduced in the upcoming monsoon session of parliament. The upcoming session is set to commence on July 20.

The letter and note sent to MPs highlight several concerns regarding the DPDP Bill based on the draft which was made public by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology in November 2022 (the draft approved by cabinet is not available in the public domain), including the proposed changes to the RTI Act.

“The draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDP Bill) proposed by MeitY was expected to develop a framework balancing the need to protect certain kinds of personal data with the provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005, which lays out the statutory framework for Indian citizens to access information, including personal information. However, the draft Bill fails to safeguard and harmonise the two,” the letter said.

The proposed amendment to Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act seeks to exempt all personal information. It does away with the exceptions carved out within the Section based on which even personal information could have been disclosed. Currently, in order to deny personal information, at least one of the following grounds has to be proven – information sought has no relationship to any public activity, or information sought has no relationship to any public interest, or information sought would cause an unwarranted invasion of privacy and PIO/appellate authority is satisfied that there is no larger public interest that justifies disclosure, the letter says.

“The proposed blanket exemption is especially problematic since it does not limit the exemption from disclosure to only sensitive personal information,” it adds.

The letter continues to argue that the proposal to amend the RTI Act through the Data Protection Bill appears to have been drafted based on an incorrect understanding of the RTI law. The draft Bill errs in interpreting the proviso to Section 8(1), which states that “information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person”, as being only applicable to Section 8(1)(j) and not to the whole of Section 8(1).

“A perusal of the original gazette notification of the RTI Act shows that by virtue of its placement and indentation, it is applicable to all of Section 8(1) and not merely Section 8(1)(j). There are several judicial pronouncements to this effect,” the letter adds.

Furthermore, the letter notes that it is well established that access to granular information, including personal information, is critical to empower people to undertake collective monitoring and ensure they are able to access their rights and entitlements. This principle is well recognised and has been adopted in various welfare programmes and schemes. “The proposed Bill will potentially place impediments and restrictions on such public disclosures.”

The letter has been endorsed by prominent activists Anjali Bhardwaj, Venkatesh Nayak, Nikhil Dey, Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu, Pradip Pradhan, Pankti Jog, Dr. Shaikh, Aruna Roy, Shailesh Gandhi, Amrita Johri, Rolly Shivhare, Pradeep Raparia, among others.

FCRA License of Harsh Mander’s Think Tank CES Suspended Because He Is a News Columnist

The activist-author told The Wire the Union home ministry’s move to cancel the FCRA license of the Centre for Equity Studies is a “direct attack on the principles of freedom of expression and freedom to dissent”.

New Delhi: The Union home ministry has invoked Section 3 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), which bars any “correspondent, columnist, cartoonist, editor, owner, printer or publisher of a registered newspaper” from accepting any foreign contributions, to suspend the FCRA license of Centre for Equity Studies (CES), a think tank that is steered by eminent activist-author and critic of the Narendra Modi government Harsh Mander, for 180 days.

The ministry has alleged that since Mander is a frequent columnist and writer in different media publications, he has violated Section 3 of the FCRA. Curiously, the government notification cites his articles and reports published in Indian media publications like Scroll, The Wire, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, The Hindu and The Quint as the primary reason for the ministry to suspend the FCRA license of CES. The think tank is involved in a wide range of activities – from research and advocacy to social service and running campaigns around issues of social justice. The suspension of CES’s FCRA license comes after a series of targeted actions against different associations and institutions with which Mander has been involved.

Mander, a former IAS officer, has been at the forefront of the campaign against communal disharmony in India and has been severely critical of the Modi government over the last nine years for allegedly fuelling majoritarian politics in the country.

The June 14, 2023 order by the home ministry alleged that Mander “has accepted foreign contribution amounting to Rs 12,64,671 during the financial year 2011-’12 to 2017-’18 as professional receipts/ payments from the FCRA account of the association [CES]”, which is in violation of “Sections 3 and 8 of the Act and conditions of registration under Section 12(4)(a)(vi) of the Act.”

Section 8 of the FCRA says that the funds received through FCRA shall only be used for the purposes for which the contribution has been received and not for any “speculative businesses”. Section 12(4)(a)(vi) of the Act prohibits any diversion of foreign grants for personal gains. The suspension of CES’s FCRA means that the organisation will be ineligible to receive any foreign grants for its activities without the ministry’s clearance.

The government notification claims that the foreign grants received by the CES were used to pay Mander’s co-authors who published reports and articles in different media platforms.

“One such example is the article written in Scroll on August 6, 2018, by Harsh Mander, Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri. It is reported that Amrita Johri and Anjali Bhardwaj have been paid Rs 1,13,251, and Rs 25,64,550 from the FCRA account of the association,” the notification said.

“He is also publishing columns with other columnists who are being paid from FCRA account of the association. For example, Mr. Abdul Kalam Azad has written a column with Harsh Mander dated 02.01.2019 titled ‘People no county wants’ & Abdul Kalam Azad has been paid Rs. 5.73 lakhs from CES FCRA bank account,” the ministry said.

The ministry also said that the foreign contributions were used by the CES to pay off non-FCRA associations with whom the former collaborated at various junctures. The notification cited a 2020 report, Labouring Lives: Hunger and Despair Amid Lockdown, which was a collaborative project between the CES, the Delhi Research Group and Karwan-E-Mohabbat, as an example of FCRA violation. The 2020 report was supported by the German foundation Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.

“Utilization of foreign contribution for such purposes is likely to affect prejudicially the sovereignty and integrity of India,” the government said, adding that the think tank received foreign contributions “specifically for the purposes which are beyond the objectives of the trust”.

The home ministry also alleged that a financial mismatch was found upon scrutiny of the CES’s annual returns, and that the think tank failed to respond to a questionnaire sent on March 3, 2023. The notification also claimed that the governing council members of the CES were paid through foreign contributions in violation of Section 8 and Section 12 (4) of the Act.

An unprecedented step

It is perhaps unprecedented for any organisation to lose its FCRA license just because its chief, in his individual capacity, is a news columnist. It is fairly common for leaders of advocacy organisations which have an FCRA license to publish their points of view on different issues. The government invoking Section 3 of the Act to suspend the FCRA license of CES may set a new precedent in India.

Mander, however, has been under the government scanner for over two years now. The home ministry in March 2023 had ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry against Aman Biradari, another NGO headed by him, for alleged violation of FCRA.

In September 2021, Mander’s house in New Delhi, the CES office, and a children’s home – Umeed with which Mander has been involved – were also raided by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with money-laundering allegations. The progress of the case remains unclear at the moment. Several civil society activists at the time had alleged that such raids were meant to silence and intimidate the government’s critics.

In October 2020, two children’s homes with which Mander worked closely were also raided by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. It alleged that children from the homes were taken to protests organised by Mander. Again, the child rights body has maintained silence on the issue following the raids and did not produce much evidence to back its claims.

Speaking with The Wire, Mander said, “We will legally challenge the order in a few days. At the moment, I can only say that it (suspension of CES’s FCRA license) is a direct attack on the principles of freedom of expression and freedom to dissent – far from being in the interest of the nation and its sovereignty as the government is trying to project.”

“One can’t write articles, one can’t talk freely. Is this what the government wants?” Mander asked.

He said the issue “goes well beyond” CES. “It suggests on the one hand that to speak up for justice, equality, fraternity – indeed in defence of the constitution – is to act against the nation. And that if you work for an organisation that received foreign funds and you receive any remuneration, you are barred from writing a column or article. The question, therefore, is of the fundamental right of conscience, of the freedom to dissent,” he told The Wire.

MPs, Civil Society Groups Oppose Changes to RTI Act Through Data Protection Bill

They expressed fear that the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, which is likely to be introduced in the ongoing budget session of parliament, will severely restrict the scope of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

New Delhi: Several political parties, concerned citizens and rights campaigns have opposed the proposal of the Union government to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act through the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDP Bill) which is likely to be introduced in the ongoing second half of the Budget session of parliament.

They have stated that the amendments will severely restrict the scope of the RTI legislation.

‘Centre trying to weaken rights of people’

During a meeting organised by various rights campaigns at the Constitution Club on Monday, March 13, Congress MP Karti Chidambaram, who is a member of the Standing Committee which examined the DPDP Bill, said through the amendment the government is trying to weaken peoples’ rights and centralising power with itself. He said that in balancing the RTI and the data protection bill, no amendments should be made to the RTI Act.

Also read: Activists, Information Commissioners Fear Data Protection Bill Will Crush RTI Act Provisions

Chidambaram also accused the government of usurping several powers related to the oversight body proposed to be set up under the DPDP Bill and said that his party will oppose these anti-people and anti-RTI provisions.

‘House panel did not discuss how DPDP Bill would impact the RTI Act’

Jawahar Sircar of Trinamool Congress, who is also a member of the Standing Committee, too shared the view saying the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has all through worked towards diluting the fundamental rights of the people. He too demanded that the RTI Act should not be weakened in any way and shared that though the Standing Committee had deliberated on the issue, it did not focus on how the amendment would impact the RTI Act.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP John Brittas, who is also in the Standing Committee, said people need to remain alert since often there are “conspiracies and ulterior motives” behind the actions of the Union government. He added that the DPDP Bill should only be brought in to benefit people by protecting and furthering their rights and not weakening the RTI Act.

Representative image of RTI. Illustration: The Wire

The three MPs who are part of the Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology also stated that the panel had not approved the DPDP Bill, 2022, as claimed by the minister of electronics and information technology.

Communist Party of India MP Azeez Pasha spoke about how the Centre has been trying to “silence” all those who question it. Stating that the amendments to the RTI Act were also in that direction, he said his party would strongly oppose any such move.

‘Concerns of citizens not being taken into consideration’

Ghanshyam Tiwari of the Samajwadi Party accused the government of “hiding” crucial information and not disclosing information that is relevant for public accountability. He also said that the government must disclose who it had consulted on the DPDP Bill and why the concerns of the citizens were not being taken into consideration.

Also read: Data Protection Bill Being Pushed by Without Proper Consultative Process, Say Activists

Senior advocate of the Supreme Court, Prashant Bhushan, said accessing information was already a challenge and if the amendments would come through then most of the information crucial for seeking accountability from the government will go outside the purview of the RTI Act. He said the government already denies a lot of information citing privacy and the issues on which it has done so range from names of bank defaulters to its own decision making processes.

‘Draft DPDP Bill has failed to harmonise it with RTI Act’

Co-convener of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), Anjali Bhardwaj, explained that the draft DPDP Bill was expected to develop a framework balancing the need to protect certain kinds of personal data with the provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005, which lays out the statutory framework for Indian citizens to access information, including personal information.

She said the draft Bill, which was made public by MeitY in November 2022, however, fails to safeguard and harmonise the two.

“The proposed Bill seeks to amend the provision regulating the disclosure of personal information to expand its purview and exempt all personal information from the ambit of the RTI Act. Also, based on an incorrect understanding of the RTI law, it seeks to delete a key overarching provision which lays down the conditions under which even information which qualifies to be exempt from disclosure is liable to be provided under the RTI Act,” she pointed out.

Former chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah said the proposed amendments would fundamentally destroy the RTI Act as they would give a wide and non-specific definition of what constitutes privacy.

‘Move may make it difficult to access information on names, opinions of officials’

Transparency activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd.) spoke about how the proposed amendment would cause hindrances on even accessing the information on decision-making as they would deny names and opinions of officials on the pretext of privacy.

Nikhil Dey of NCPRI shared the view, saying that public disclosure of information was crucial for people to be able to access their rights. He cited the example of the MGNREGA public database which enables people to carry out public monitoring and tracking of funds, wages, and work sites, and said if such information is removed due to the DPDP Bill, people will find it impossible to access their rights.

The public meeting also passed a resolution demanding that “regressive amendments” not be made to the RTI Act. It also criticised the centralisation of power sought to be done through the DPDP Bill and urged that this Bill be put through a proper process of consultation, including in Hindi and regional languages, before being taken forward.

RTI Information Flow Continues to Suffer Due to Vacancies, Tardy Rate of Disposal: Report

The report notes how some Information Commissions return over 40% of cases without orders. Minuscule penalties are imposed on officers not providing replies.

New Delhi: The latest report by Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) on the performance of the 29 Information Commissions set up under the Right to Information Act across the country has revealed a poor state of functioning of most commissions.

The report has noted that while the State Information Commissions of Tripura and Jharkhand have been lying defunct, may others are functioning with significantly fewer than the sanctioned strength of commissioners.

Pendency of cases reaches 3.14 lakh due to tardy rate of disposal, vacancies in Commissions

The report has also pointed out that while the shortage of commissioners has added to the pendency of appeals and complaints that topped the 3.14 lakh mark in June 2022, the tendency of some of the commissions to return nearly 40% of the complaints without any orders, and the tardy pace at which many of the commissioners have been functioning has also been harming the RTI movement.

Writing the report, Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri said a total of 145 RTI applications were filed with the State Information Commissions (SIC) and the Central Information Commission (CIC) and there were 10 main queries that were posed to the panels. The replies received till October 12, 2022, were incorporated in the report that covers the functioning of the panels from July 2021 till June 2022.

“The report,” the SNS said, “is part of an effort to undertake ongoing monitoring of the performance of information commissions across the country with the objective of improving the functioning of commissions and strengthening the RTI regime.”

Also read: Cases Pending Before Information Commissions Mount as Posts Remain Vacant

It added that the need to scrutinise the functioning of information commissions had grown in view of amendments made to the law in 2019 and due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most Commissioners are retired bureaucrats, only 10% women

On the key findings, the Sangathan said “there is lack of diversity in the composition of information commissions” as nearly 60% commissioners were retired government officials and only 10% of them were women. Also, it said, there was no commission that was headed by a woman at present.

It was also revealed that the Commissions were returning a large number of cases without passing any orders. “The CIC, UP SIC and Andhra Pradesh SIC returned around 40% of the appeals/complaints received by them,” it added.

Less than one case a day being disposed by some Commissioners

On the amount of work being put in by the Commissioners too, the report commented on a “tardy disposal rate”.

It said “several commissions have an extremely low rate of disposal per commissioner. For instance, the SIC of West Bengal had an annual average disposal rate of 222 cases per commissioner – each commissioner effectively disposing fewer than one case a day – even though more than 10,000 cases were pending.”

The report said that out of the Commissions, it was only the Central Information Commission that has set a norm on the number of appeals and complaints to be disposed of by each commissioner in a year.

Earlier in October this year, the SNS had also released a ‘report card’ on the performance of the 29 Commissions in which it had stated among other things that the number of pending cases have gone up by 59,000 in the past year.

The report had stated that “large backlog of appeals and complaints in many commissions across the country have resulted in inordinate delays in disposal of cases, which render the law ineffective.”

Two Commissions remained defunct, four functioned without a chief

This ‘Report Card’ had revealed that while two of the information commissions – Jharkhand and Tripura – still remained completely defunct during the year, as no new commissioners have been appointed upon the incumbents demitting office, Meghalaya had moved out of the list over the past year.

The report had added that another four commissions are functioning without a chief information commissioner. These were the SICs of Manipur, Telangana, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.

Also read: Over 26,500 RTI Appeals Pending with Information Commission: Centre

The report had also noted that several information commissions have been functioning at reduced capacity. “The non-appointment of commissioners in the ICs in a timely manner leads to a large build-up of pending appeals and complaints,” it said.

Overall, the report had pointed out how the backlog of appeals/complaints has been steadily increasing in the commissions – growing from 255,602 appeals pending before 26 information commissions last year, to 314,323 appeals pending as on June 30 this year. This marked a rise of nearly a lakh more pending cases in a year.

Reluctance to impose penalties on erring PIOs remains

The report had also lamented that that the Commissions still remained reluctant in imposing penalties on officers where they could be imposed. “The RTI Act empowers the ICs to impose penalties of up to Rs 25,000 on erring PIOs for violations of the RTI Act. The penalty clause is one of the key provisions in terms of giving the law its teeth and acting as a deterrent for PIOs against violating the law,” it said, adding that “the assessment found that ICs imposed penalty in an extremely small fraction of the cases in which penalty was imposable”.

This year, the report stated, the analysis of penalties imposed by Information Commissions shows that the commissions did not impose penalties in 95% of the cases where penalties were potentially imposable. Last year too, the percentage of penalties imposed was exactly the same and this shows that neither the CIC nor the SICs have acted on the matter.

Data Protection Bill Being Pushed by Without Proper Consultative Process, Say Activists

In a letter to the IT minister, NCPRI said the established principles of pre-legislative consultation were not being complied with in relation to the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022.

New Delhi: The National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) has in a letter to information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, charged that “established principles of pre-legislative consultation” were not being complied with in relation to the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022.

The Campaign, which has also marked a copy of the letter to the minister of state in the ministry, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, pointed out how the new Bill has been brought in a surreptitious manner to bypass a discussion before the Joint Parliament Committee.

It said “an earlier Bill on a similar subject was referred to the Joint Parliamentary Committee which made extensive recommendations. In August 2022, the government withdrew the said Bill and has now put out a new scheme for processing people’s digital personal data in the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022.” The Campaign said it was on November 18, 2022 that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) then published the draft Bill inviting comments and suggestions.

‘Bill seeks to amend key provisions of RTI Act, so greater public consultation needed’

Stating that the Bill also seeks to amend key provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005 which will impact millions of citizens who employ it every year to seek greater transparency and accountability from public authorities, the NCPRI said “given the wide ramifications of the draft Bill, it is crucial that it be put through a more rigorous and extensive process of public consultation”.

Incidentally, this letter comes just a day after several information commissioners had expressed their fear that the Data Protection Bill would crush several key RTI Act provisions and make it even more difficult for citizens to obtain information through the Act.

The NCPRI letter also stated that while the ministry has invited feedback on the draft Bill, “the manner and procedure of inviting public feedback does not do justice to the established principles of pre-legislative consultation.”

Also Read: Activists, Information Commissioners Fear Data Protection Bill Will Crush RTI Act Provisions

‘Pre-legislative consultation policy not properly followed’

NCPRI reminded the two ministers that “the Pre-legislative Consultation Policy adopted by the Union Government in 2014 mandates that all draft legislation be placed in the public domain for at least 30 days, inviting public comments and a summary of feedback/comments received be made available on the concerned ministry’s website prior to sending it for Cabinet approval.”

It added that the mandate also requires that wide publicity be given to the consultation process and the draft legislation through print and electronic media, or in such other manner considered necessary to reach the affected people.

But going against these “minimum standards for public consultation on draft legislations”, NCPRI said the note by MeitY states that “submissions will not be disclosed and held in fiduciary capacity, to enable persons submitting feedback to provide the same freely. No public disclosure of the submissions will be made.”

The NCPRI objected to this stance saying, “the very purpose of public consultation – to encourage free exchange of ideas and concerns – is defeated by this kind of secrecy.”

The Campaign said information held by public authorities is subject to disclosure as per the provisions of the RTI Act and therefore, no arbitrary pre-conditions of confidentiality can be imposed.

Illustration: The Wire

‘Consultation process is exclusionary’

It also expressed its concern at the limited nature of the consultation around the draft Bill for two reasons. “First, it is currently available only in English and none of the languages included in the Eighth Schedule of our Constitution. Second, the Ministry has sought feedback only through the MyGov website and that too chapter-wise, with little scope for providing comments on matters that have been left out of the draft Bill,” the Campaign said in the letter.

The signatories to the letter, who included RTI activists Anjali Bhardwaj, Aruna Roy, Shailesh Gandhi, Venkatesh Nayak, Nikhil Dey, Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu, Pradip Pradhan, Pankti Jog, Shaikh Ghulam Rasool and Amrita Johri among others, also wrote that since the proposed legislation will affect people across the country, the text and the accompanying notes must be made available in Hindi and other regional languages.

Further, the letter said providing only an online mode to give feedback completely excludes hundreds of millions of people in the country who would not have the necessary digital know-how and resources to engage with the process. As per the government’s own surveys, NCPRI said, less than half the population of India has ever accessed the Internet. It urged the government to open offline mechanisms such as post or courier services for people to submit comments on the draft Bill.

Finally, the letter urged MeitY to hold consultations at the state level to facilitate more widespread and deeper people’s engagement with the proposed legislation. “Transparency and openness in the consultation process is key to ensuring peoples’ trust in the process and the institutional framework for protecting digital personal data that is proposed to be set up,” the activists wrote, seeking a meeting with the minister to discuss these issues in detail.

Cases Pending Before Information Commissions Mount as Posts Remain Vacant

A new report says that two state information panels remain defunct and that the number of pending cases have gone up by 59,000 in the past year.

New Delhi: With some State Information Commissions (SICs) being completely defunct and others working without a chief information commissioner or with a reduced strength of information commissions, the pendency of cases before the panels has shot up by nearly 59,000 in the past year, a comparative analysis of the latest report on their functioning has revealed.

The citizens’ group Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) has produced report cards on the performance of the information commissions in India for the past many years. The idea behind the exercise has been to highlight their key role in providing information to people under the Right to Information (RTI) Act and the causes behind the shortcomings in the delivery of such information.

This year too, on the 17th anniversary of the enactment of the RTI Act, the group came out with a report that analysed the functioning of all 29 information commissions in terms of the number of appeals and complaints registered and disposed of by them, the number of pending cases, estimated waiting time for the disposal of an appeal/complaint filed in each commission, frequency of violations penalised by commissions and transparency in their working.

Writing the report, Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri noted that “seventeen years after the RTI Act was implemented, experience in India, also captured in various national assessments, suggests that the functioning of information commissions is a major bottleneck in the effective implementation of the RTI law. Large backlog of appeals and complaints in many commissions across the country have resulted in inordinate delays in disposal of cases, which render the law ineffective.”

While the report has pointed out the functioning of the 29 information commissions, The Wire looked into how their performance this year compared with the previous one to see if the government has taken any corrective actions.

Also Read: Over 26,500 RTI Appeals Pending with Information Commission: Centre

Two commissions remain completely defunct

The latest ‘Report Card’ for 2021-22 has pointed out that two of the information commissions – Jharkhand and Tripura – still remain completely defunct as no new commissioners have been appointed upon the incumbents demitting office. They were on this list last year too, along with Meghalaya – which has since moved out. “In the absence of functional commissions, information seekers have no reprieve under the RTI Act if they are unable to access information as per the provisions of the law,” the report said.

The report added that another four commissions are functioning without a chief information commissioner. These are the SICs of Manipur, Telangana, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. Last year too, Manipur and Telangana did not have a chief information commissioner and neither did Nagaland.

On the significance of this aspect, the report said: “The absence of a chief information commissioner has serious ramifications for the effective functioning of the ICs since the RTI Act envisages a critical role for the chief, including, superintendence, management and direction of the affairs of the information commission.”

Backlog up by nearly a lakh in three years

The report also noted that several information commissions have been functioning at reduced capacity. “The non-appointment of commissioners in the ICs in a timely manner leads to a large build-up of pending appeals and complaints,” it said.

This year, it said, “In the Central Information Commission, three posts of commissioners continue to be vacant even though the backlog of appeals/complaints currently stands at nearly 26,800 cases.”

To explain the impact these vacancies have on the functioning of the commissions, the report cited the example of Maharashtra SIC, which has been functioning with just five information commissioners, including the chief, for the past several months. It said:

“Due to the commission functioning at a severely reduced strength, the number of pending appeals/complaints has risen at an alarming rate. While as of March 31, 2019, close to 46,000 appeals and complaints were pending, the backlog as of May 2021 increased to nearly 75,000 and reached an alarming level of nearly one lakh by June 2022.”

Overall, the report said, the backlog of appeals/complaints has been steadily increasing in the commissions. Last year, there were 255,602 appeals pending before 26 information commissions. This year, as on June 30, the number of pending appeals and complaints had risen to 3,14,323. This is nearly a lakh more than the pendency on March 31, 2019, when this figure stood at 2,18,347 in the 26 information commissions.

Illustration: The Wire

In West Bengal an appeal on average would take over 24 years for disposal

Due to the large pendency of appeals and complaints, the report noted that as of today, 12 commissions have an estimated waiting time of one year or more to dispose of a matter. Last year, the report stated that 13 commissions would take over a year on average to dispose of a matter.

On the impact this has on cases in various SICs, it said: “Using the average monthly disposal rate and the pendency in commissions, the time it would take for an appeal/complaint to be disposed was computed. The assessment shows that West Bengal SIC would take an estimated 24 years and 3 months to dispose a matter.” Similarly, it noted that in Odisha and Maharashtra SICs, estimated time for disposal is now more than 5 years and in Bihar more than 2 years.”

Reluctance to impose penalties on erring PIOs remains

The report said penalties are rarely imposed on public information officers (PIOs), which is why information is not given out on time to the appellants. “The RTI Act empowers the ICs to impose penalties of up to Rs 25,000 on erring PIOs for violations of the RTI Act. The penalty clause is one of the key provisions in terms of giving the law its teeth and acting as a deterrent for PIOs against violating the law,” it said, adding that “the assessment found that ICs imposed penalty in an extremely small fraction of the cases in which penalty was imposable”.

This year, the report said, the analysis of penalties imposed by information commissions shows that the commissions did not impose penalties in 95% of the cases where penalties were potentially imposable. Last year too, the percentage of penalties imposed was exactly the same and this shows that neither the CIC nor the SICs have acted on the matter.

Delhi HC Reserves Order on Appeal Against Denial of Copy of SC Collegium Decisions Under RTI

The petitioner sought details of a Collegium meeting on December 12, 2018 in which then CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Madan Lokur were to decide on the elevation of two HC chief justices to the SC.

New Delhi: A bench of the Delhi high court comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma on Friday reserved its order upon hearing an appeal against a single judge order denying access to a copy of decisions taken by the Supreme Court collegium in 2018.

The single judge bench had dismissed a petition against the denial of this information by the Central Information Commission (CIC) on the ground that any decision would have to be embodied in a resolution and since no resolution was passed at the meeting, no records could be provided.

In the appeal against this ruling, petitioner Anjali Bhardwaj, represented by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, said the single judge’s decision went against the Supreme Court Collegium’s resolution of October 3, 2017 on transparency in the collegium system.

In that resolution, the Collegium said that the decisions taken henceforth will be expalined by reasons shall put on the website of the Supreme Court, including when recommendations are sent to the Government of India for elevating judges, confirmation of permanent judges, elevation to the post of the Chief Justice, transfers of judges.

“On each occasion the material which is considered by the Collegium is different. The Resolution is passed to ensure transparency and yet maintain confidentiality in the Collegium system,” the resolution said.

Why is the December 2018 Collegium meeting important?

The petition also submitted that there were several documents and accounts confirming the existence of the decisions taken at the meeting of the Collegium on December 12, 2018.

It stated that the subsequent Collegium meeting minutes had also recorded that certain decisions were taken and that the autobiography of the then Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, who presided over the collegium, also confirmed that decisions were taken at the meeting. It also added that the CJI had chosen to not send the decisions to the government and kept the matter in abeyance.

Also, Bhardwaj submitted that Justice Madan Lokur, who was then a member of the collegium, also confirmed publicly that indeed decisions were taken at the meeting.

In the hearing on Friday, it was pointed out by the petitioner that under the RTI Act, any material that exists on record has to be provided to citizens. For the purpose of accessing information, it was immaterial whether or not the said decision was later embodied in the form of a resolution. Following the hearing, the bench reserved the matter for judgment.

The Delhi high Court. Photo: PTI

Details of Collegium meeting were not uploaded

The case assumes significance since the collegium meeting of December 2018 pertained to the elevation of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, the then chief justice of the Rajasthan HC, and Justice Rajendra Menon, the then CJ of the Delhi HC, to the Supreme Court. However, the decisions were not carried through and the names were dropped later.

The collegium, including CJI Gogoi and Justice Lokur, had taken some decisions on the agenda of the meeting. As per Bhardwaj’s petition, “details of the same were, however, not uploaded on the Supreme Court’s website.”

On January 10, 2019, the petition added, the Collegium resolution of the meeting held that day recorded that “certain decisions were taken in the previous collegium meeting of 12.12.2018 however as the required consultation could not be undertaken and completed and the composition of the Collegium underwent a change, this newly constituted Collegium deemed it appropriate to have a fresh look at the matter.”

It was further submitted that on January 23, 2019, “in an interview, Justice (Retd.) Madan Lokur confirmed that the Collegium had taken certain decisions on 12.12.2018 and expressed his disappointment that these were not being uploaded on the Supreme Court website.”

Why was information denied?

Thereafter on February 26, 2019, an application under the RTI Act was filed by the petitioner seeking a copy of the agenda of the meeting; a copy of the decisions taken in the said meeting; and a copy of the resolutions of the said meeting.

On March 11, 2019, the chief public information officer (CPIO) denied the information, citing various exemptions and claiming the matter of access to such information is sub-judice.

An appeal was filed against this CPIO’s decision on April 8, 2019. On April 23, 2019, it was rejected by the First Appellate Authority on the grounds that though certain decisions were taken on December 12, 2018, the required consultation could not be taken and completed and, therefore, there arises no question of passing any resolution by the Collegium on December 12, 2018. In absence of any such information, the information could not be supplied.

The second appeal was filed before the CIC on June 4, 2019. However, after over two years, the CIC disposed of the appeal while upholding the denial of information on the same grounds as that of the First Appellate Authority.

Stating that “it is clear that the agenda for the meeting dated 12.12.2018 has been mentioned therein”, the Commission concurred with the order of the FAA and held that in the absence of any resolution passed in the meeting dated 12.12.2018, no available information as per Section 2(f) exists on record which can be disclosed.

Also Read: ‘Justice for the Judge’, Injustice for Everyone Else

‘No blanket exemption’

The petition by Bhardwaj also mentioned that on November 13, 2019, the Delhi HC held in CPIO Supreme Court of India vs Subhash Chandra Agarwal that there can be no blanket exemption from information available to the public when it comes to the information related to appointment and elevation of judges. Each RTI request has to be considered on its own merits by the CPIO by applying the test of overriding public interest in terms of Section 8 (2) of the RTI Act of 2005, the court said.

Aggrieved with the CIC ruling, Bhardwaj moved the Delhi HC on March 4, 2022. But on March 30, 2022, the single judge bench dismissed his petition.

It held that no resolution with respect to agenda items was drawn by the Collegium on December 12, 2018. “It becomes pertinent to observe that a ‘decision’ taken by the collegium would necessarily have to be embodied in a ‘resolution’ which is ultimately framed and signed by the Hon’ble members of that collective body. That resolution alone would represent the collective decision taken or the majoritarian view which prevailed and was adopted,” the bench said.

Further, the single bench said, “In the absence of any formal resolution coming to be adopted and signed by the members of the Collegium on 12th December 2018, the respondents have rightly taken the position that there was absence of material that was liable to be disclosed.”

It also held that “the submissions addressed in the backdrop of certain newspaper reports are noticed only to be rejected since those reports are of no evidentiary value.”

‘Bench erred by not appreciating provisions of RTI Act’

In the appeal against this single bench ruling, Bhardwaj filed the Letters Patent Appeal (LPA) in the Delhi HC on July 18, 2022.

The LPA claimed that the single bench erred in holding that the ‘decision’ of the Collegium would necessarily have to be embodied in a ‘resolution’ and consequently dismissed the writ petition on the grounds that no resolution exists, without appreciating the scheme and provisions of the RTI Act. The Act clearly defines what constitutes ‘information’ vide which a ‘decision’ would be distinct and separate from a ‘resolution’ as far as the appellant’s right to access information is concerned and therefore. “The dismissal is in contravention of the Act on vague and wrong grounds,” the petition said.

Murdered RTI Activist Faced Numerous Threats For Complaining Against Graft: Report

‘In our view, the connection between Ranjeet Soni’s murder and his use of the RTI Act to access information and expose alleged corruption or irregularities cannot be denied,’ a fact-finding team has noted.

New Delhi: A month after an RTI activist in Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha was shot dead at a government office, a fact-finding team has released a report noting that he had been under severe pressure from local government contractors to stop his activities.

The team travelled to Vidisha on June 19 to meet the family of Ranjeet Soni, who was killed on June 2. It comprised Anjali Bhardwaj, Rolly Shivhare and Amrita Johri who are members of the working committee of the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information; Ajay Dubey who is board member of Transparency International, India, and Santosh Malviya who works with Dubey in Madhya Pradesh.

The report states that Soni’s widow Gayatri said that he was most recently pursuing issues related to fake Fixed Deposit Receipts (FDRs) made by certain contractors in collusion with officials to bid for government contracts.

Soni himself was a contractor on government works but stopped working with two of those arrested for his murder – Jaswant Raghuvanshi and S. Kumar Choube – after a falling out. Police have arrested three others, including the shooter Ankit Yadav who was allegedly assigned the task.

Soni had been using the RTI Act to access details of public works and government expenditure and would file complaints against irregularities he had noticed. Local journalists told the fact-finding team that over 130 RTI requests had been filed by him.

Soni had not just been collecting information but also seeking redress.

Based on the RTI replies, he filed complaints to various authorities including the Lokayukta, public works department and the Chief Minister’s Office seeking appropriate action into the allegations.

“A perusal of the RTI applications filed by him show that in several cases he was seeking information which in any case should have been proactively disclosed by the concerned public authority as required under Section 4 of the RTI Act,” the fact-finders’ report notes.

The fact-finding report notes the discovery of several RTI applications made by Soni to unearth allocations and acquisitions at government hospitals, eligibility of persons appointed for government jobs, and details of road constructions. In 2016, Soni filed a police complaint alleging a physical attack by Raghuvanshi and his people over an RTI on road construction deals filed by him. Raghuvanshi allegedly also got a person, who Soni alleges he did not even know, to file a case under the SC/ST Act against him.

In April this year, S. Kumar Choube wrote to the Divisional Project Manager of Vidisha’s public works department, asking to be informed if information is provided to Soni under the RTI.

Gayatri Soni. RTI activist Ranjeet Soni’s widow.

The family, even before Soni’s death, had made significant changes to their lives to accommodate the shift in Soni’s profession, even selling their house and moving when payments to Soni stopped due to “action by these contractors.”

Crucially, the day after Soni was killed was when the next hearing of a case arising from a dispute of a bounced cheque allegedly given by Soni was scheduled. Gayatri and Soni’s lawyer told the team that evidence of corruption against the contractors was to be presented on that day.

“In our view, the connection between Ranjeet’s murder and his use of the RTI Act to access information and expose alleged corruption/irregularities cannot be denied,” the team notes in the report.

In addition to the criminal investigation into the murder of Soni, other related aspects also need to be pursued strongly, the report says, especially stressing on his complaints to various divisions of the government.

“The family is in deep financial crisis and the government must provide immediate compensation to the family,” the report also says, noting his wife’s meagre earnings of Rs 2,000 per fortnight as a handicrafts trainer and the fact that that couple have two schoolgoing children.

Also read: ‘Admin-Aided Murder’: Kin, Others Slam Police After Slain RTI Activist’s Minor Son Dies By Suicide

The report also requests relevant public authorities to place in the public domain, on the website of the concerned public authorities, all the RTI applications filed by Soni in the last one year (including any pending applications) along with the information and replies.

Publicity to information being pursued by people who are killed potentially acts as a deterrent against such attacks in the future, the report observes.

It also recommends the setting up of an inquiry committee, headed by a senior PWD official from outside the district, to probe into the various complaints of corruption and financial irregularities filed by Soni to the PWD.

In addition to fast-tracking the Lokayukta complaints that had been filed by Soni and a thorough police probe into his death, the fact-finding team also asks for a policy or law to provide protection to whistleblowers and people exposing corruption.

“…[The] Whistle Blowers Protection Act which was passed by Parliament in 2014 but has not been operationalised till date as the
Central government has not notified the requisite rules,” the report observes.