SHILLONG: RTI activist Agnes Kharshiing said that reducing the tenure of the Chief Information Commissioners is of not much concern as long as transparency is there.
“The information commissioner should be the one who is concerned and monitor that RTI findings are uploaded by respective government departments. It should be transparent and people will see that it is there”, she said.
The recent notification of the Centre reduced the tenure of the central and state information commissioners to three years from five years.
The central information commissioners and state information commissioners have been equated with serving civil servants, who are placed in the same pay grade. The chief central information commissioner is equated with a cabinet secretary.
Other information commissioners have been equated with officers of the same grade in the service of the central or state government, respectively.
Kharshiing, however, said that the uploading of the RTI findings by the concerned department has to be there. “It should be uploaded in the website. People are talking about hi-tech, why do I have to go and find the RTI reply, if I go through the website, I should find it”, she said.
RTI activist Michael Syiem said there was opposition to the RTI amendment and with the current numbers that the BJP have in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, it is an unfortunate development.
“We opposed as we have worked so hard to make the RTI an independent body. If the government infringes on the independence of the RTI especially the CIC, it can slowly erode the independence of the RTI activists”.
Stating that RTI is one law in India widely used by the public to keep the government in check, he said the RTI activists are establishing contacts with groups all over India and see how they can move forward.
Another RTI activist, Angela Rangad said the independence has been compromised and the central government has more hold.
“There is no independence as such anymore and the effectiveness is gone. They cannot make such amendments like that because the spirit of the act cannot be challenged through rules and hopefully somebody will raise in the Court of Law”, she said.
