“RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT – AN ANTI CORRUPTION TOOL”
INTRODUCTION:
Corruption is a global problem that individuals encounter, resulting in a lack of transparency, accountability, institutional machinery, knowledge, and so on. It is the abuse of authority and money by governments and people for personal gain, such as lobbying or diverting funding in private sectors intended for public benefit. Corruption buys a person's selfishness by demonstrating an easy path to prosperity and a rich lifestyle. Corruption, like a weed in a crop, threatens openness in the government system and citizen accountability, but where there is a problem, there is also a solution, and that answer is RTI. International Right to Know Day, observed on September 28th throughout the world, is a watershed moment for every citizen. This day recognizes the importance of people's freedom to access information held by their national governments. Our government is based on three essential pillars of our constitution: legislature, which produces laws, and judicial, which interprets the laws and and the executive, which includes both the political and bureaucratic branches to carry out the laws.
RTI is an abbreviation for the Right to Information Act of 2005. Parliament enacted the RTI Act, 2005 on June 15, 2005, and it went into effect on October 13, 2005. RTI is an abbreviation for the Right to Information, which is a basic right granted by our Indian constitution under Article 19(a) freedom of speech and expression, which indirectly grants the right to know. The Right to Information Act, 2005 was enacted to address flaws in the Freedom of Information Act, 2002 and to improve the law's efficiency by making it more accessible and inexpensive to all Indian citizens seeking information. It grants the right to request information from any public entity in India. NRIs and foreigners are not covered by the Right to Information Act of 2005. It seeks to promote openness, accountability, and active public involvement in democracy by making information available to those who want it. It only distributes information in the public interest that is owned or accessible by public authority.
Following the implementation of the RTI Act in 2005, social activists, civil society organizations, and ordinary citizens' organizations have effectively used the act to combat corruption in the public interest, promoting openness and accountability in government. Accountability is one of the most important aspects of government operation. The primary need for accountability is for citizens to be informed of how the government works. It is feasible that if people understand how the government works, they would be able to carry out the responsibilities that democracy has entrusted to them, transforming democracy into a really effective participatory democracy.
As a result, RTI and openness in the government system are critical to eradicating corruption. RTI is the result of a collaborative effort by various non-profit organizations and activists, including PUCL (People's Union of Civil Liberties), MKSS (Majdoor Kishan Shakti Sangthan), Aruna Roy, Mukesh Dubey, Venkatesh, Lalit Mehta etc. Many RTI advocates, including a police officer, have been persecuted and murdered for obtaining information in order to promote openness and accountability in the operations of all public authorities.
IMPACT OF RTI ON THE ROOTS OF CORRUPTION
1.Ease in Accessibility- Prior to the implementation of RTI, only members of parliament had the authority to request information from the government. It gave the common people the ability to seek information from the government. RTI has measures that make it simple for information seekers to obtain information. Under this act, no Public Authority may reject access to information on any grounds other than those forbidden by Section 8 or inquire as to why the information seeker needs the information. Any individual who seeks information under this act may submit his or her request in writing or electronically in English, Hindi, or the official language of the region where the applicant made the request, together with the cost specified in this act. If an information seeker is unable to submit a written or electronic request because he or she is illiterate or mentally or physically disabled, the Public Information Officer is obligated to help the individual making the request verbally in converting it to writing. No Public Authority may ask anything that is not needed in the course of obtaining information or is banned by this act or any other legislation currently in effect. Vishwas Bhamburkar v. PIO (Public Information Officer), Housing & Urban Development Corporation Ltd. (CIC, 2018), a recent case, was taken up by the Chief Information Commission (CIC), Munirka, New Delhi (CIC), the CIC was challenged with two fundamental challenges under the Right to Information Act of 2005, which are as follows:
ISSUES
HELD
The CIC determined that the challenged application did not violate any exemption to the RTI Act. That the CPIO (Central Public Indian Officer) in the case voiced concerns about the applicant's citizenship without explaining why. There was no cause to justify his trepidation.
That the CPIO failed to explain the denial of information since he could not point to any provision of exception under Section 8 (exemption from disclosure of information) or Section 9 (exemption from disclosure of information) (Grounds for rejection to access in certain cases).
3.Affordibility-RTI has made information more accessible to all Indian citizens, rich and poor alike. No public authority may charge more than 50 RS./- per application under this legislation. In the case of Common Cause v. Allahabad High Court & Another (SC, 2018), the petitioner challenged the Allahabad High Court's RTI Rules, 2006 on the grounds that they were unconstitutional, the same was in violation of various articles of the RTI Act since Rule 4 of the contested Rules established a charge of Rs. 500/- per application was not in compliance with the provisions underpinning the RTI Act The Supreme Court ruled that the charge for filing an RTI application should not be more than Rs.50/- and Rs.5 for photocopying for all government agencies.
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4.Time Saver- Prior to this legislation, no ordinary person could seek and obtain information since no public entity was obligated to furnish information to every information seeker. If someone attempts, he or she will obtain knowledge in years. However, as a result of this legislation, no one can deny or refuse to furnish information to an information seeker within thirty days, or thirty-five days if the RTI application is moved to another public body. If a person is hesitant to send his RTI application by post or is pressed for time owing to work, he might go to a nearby post office and present his application to the assistant PIO. The postal service employs a large number of APIOs (Assistant Public Information Officers) at its many offices. Their responsibility is to accept and submit RTI requests to the PIO or the appropriate appellate authority. A monetary fee is imposed on any officer of the public authority who fails to provide information to an information seeker.
5.Transparency-Hiding facts of public interest from the public, which leads to corruption through interfering with openness in government institutions. Such information might include the budget, regulation, survey, and so on of the government's plans and facilities that are of public interest. This statute puts duties on public authorities to keep all records in a way that makes them simple to obtain within a reasonable time frame by making them computerised and making them available on the internet. Within one hundred and twenty days following the implementation of this act, all required information on public authority must be published. All information in the public's interest should be extensively disseminated in a way and form that is easily available to the public, such as through newspapers, media broadcasts, the internet, and so on.
6.Better Accountability-The RTI legislation is extremely beneficial in raising awareness and encouraging government accountability. It is a problem-solving tool for personal, societal, and communal issues. Personal issues such as Pending Income Tax Return, Delayed Passport, Property Documents such as Occupancy Certificate/Completion Certificate, Delayed Aadhar Card, FIR Status, Scholarship Delay, Copies of Answer Sheets, and so on. Social issues such as poor road conditions Conduct a social audit of government initiatives, and see how your MP/MLA used the money allotted to him, learn about the execution, regulation, and budget allocations of a government project or plan, and so on. If the public is aware of their role and the importance of their involvement in the democratic system, and is fascinated in the government's working style and philosophy.
RTI ACT SUCCESS STORIES
It has shown to be useful in discovering various frauds and anomalies, one of which being the Adarsh Society Scam, in which a six-story structure for the widows of Kargil war heroes was converted into a thirty-story vicarage for politicians, bureaucrats, and high military commanders. RTI campaigners Simpreet Singh and Yogacharya Anandji uncovered the link. It was revealed that the land did not belong to the State of Government, but rather to the Ministry of Defence.
Another example is the announcement of demonetisation without the approval of the RBI: On November 8, 2016, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the historic decision to demonetize the country following a three-hour meeting with the parent body of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Before declaring demonetization, PM did not even wait for the formal sanction of the RBI, causing havoc in the lives of thousands of people in the days ahead. Following the submission of an RTI request by activist Venkatesh Nayak, it was revealed that the RBI differed with the Centre on the appropriateness of this measure in reining in the circulation of black money and counterfeit money.
In the last five years, there have been 23,000 loan fraud cases: The RBI responded to an RTI request by stating that 23,000 incidences of fraud were recorded by different banks in the previous five years, totaling Rs. 1 lakh crore.
Commonwealth Games Scam: After a non-profit group filed an RTI, it was found that the Delhi Government syphoned Rs. 744 Crore from money allocated for Dalit community development to the Commonwealth Games. The Housing and Land Rights Network, a non-profit organisation, also discovered that the majority of the diverted monies were spent on facilities that were only visible on paper, implying more corruption and money laundering.
Based on the evidence presented above, it is obvious that the Right to Information Act of 2005 has the potential to combat and remove corruption. A democratic country's basics include accessibility and affordability, public awareness, and accountability and openness of government to its citizens. We all know that eradicating corruption is difficult, but the RTI Act allows us to make an attempt. The main issue is that people are uninformed, which complicates what should be simple. RTI is that spark that may start a fire everywhere it touches.
CONCLUSION
According to Justice Arali Nagaraj in the Times of India, "only a sensitised community can develop a corruption-free nation." People must awaken from their lethargy and work together to establish openness in government.”
The right to information (RTI) is a crucial and desirable right that allows individuals to resist corruption. The thing that is required is a conscience on the part of the ic that they should utilise their right to know constructively in keeping India corruption-free, rather than stifling national growth and integration or undermining peace and consistency among its inhabitants. The most crucial function in a democratic democracy is that of the people, who should have the ability to hold their government responsible to them. It will happen when everyone questions their government by making RTI petitions, rather than assuming that they should answer us because it is their right to do so. ‘If everyone is informed, there is no corruption.'
“This piece of paper is a weapon for the weak to use against the corrupt establishment,” says the author.