Addressing the 10th anniversary of Central Information Commission, the Prime Minister said more openness in governance will empower citizens. “It is true that Right to Information gives the common man the right to know, but it shouldn’t be restricted to that”.
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The topic of two-day convention is “Right to Information: Futuristic Vision-Confidence Building through Transparency”. “Delayed information does not help solve the problem but increases it. Timely information can halt a wrong decision. But we are stranded outside the venue”, said Balwinder Singh, an RTI activist from Jammu and Kashmir, before being granted entry. “To bring reform, we must change our fundamental behaviour”, he said. “Why not make efforts to make information available easily so that people do not have to pursue it”, the prime minister asked. The petitioner alleged that in 2012, Modi, contesting the state assembly election from Maninagar constituency, had left the space of spouse blank, which amounted to concealing information and hence action should be taken against him under the provisions of Representation of People (RP) Act.
In his address, he remarked against previous Congress government on spectrum scam and said that after his government came to power everything in the scam was made transparent.
He also stressed that RTI should be used to bring improvement in governance.
The convention was boycotted by many top RTI activists, including Aruna Roy, who had Thursday announced her intention of doing so. When we will perfectly analyse questions and find shortcomings in governance…the questions of citizens can highlight these shortcomings of the system and we can find a way to correct them.
“Only responding to RTI questions can not bring change in governance. I do not think anybody will have to file RTI query seeking information of this process because what one would seek from a RTI query is already available”, Modi said. “What to do as it has become a compulsion”, he said.
On the completion of ten years of RTI Act, the first CIC of India, Shri Wajahat Habibullah said that the scope of RTI should not be limited only to know, but should also aim at “public participation” in the process of governance through RTI. “That’s when change is possible”, he said.
“It has transformed us during the last few decades and particularly in the last decade, from a society that relished in secrecy”, he said.
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He said administrators of the RTI Act have to use their discretion to see whether the Act is being used for empowerment, to avoid harassment, for the benefit of the common man or if it being used by for collateral purposes. Shri Jaitley said a line needs to be drawn between the public domain and privacy issue, while implementing the Act.
