Modi government’s proposed amendments to one of India’s most powerful laws will reduce autonomous information commissions to ‘caged parrots’.
India’s Right to Information Act is under attack. Surreptitiously, and without any public consultation, the Narendra Modi government introduced a bill in Parliament that aims to undermine the independence of information commissions – the final adjudicators under the RTI law. The bill was passed on 22 July by the Lok Sabha, where the ruling BJP dispensation has a brute majority, despite strong resistance from opposition benches.
The amendments have been widely opposed by users of the RTI Act. In response, Union minister Prakash Javadekar has termed opposition to the bill a “deliberate and mischievous attempt by a section to malign the government”. Further, the BJP has now circulated a factsheet titled, “RTI Amendment Bill 2019 – Don’t fall for fear mongering”. Unfortunately, the “facts” on the list do not appear to stand up to scrutiny.
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