Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah:

Unwilling to strike and even more scared to wound?

f Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah’s comments on the future of the Right to Information Act 2005 made on a Doordarshan group discussion on Sunday (October 23, 2005) are any indication of his approach, it is a matter of concern for all citizens: he is deeply apprehensive about how citizens are going to use their right “correctly”, rather than whether he can deliver the goods. 

The CIC made the extraordinary observation that he feared misuse of the Act, even though the Act has not fully been implemented yet in many Central departments and even less by the State Governments. Some States have stopped with issuance of gazettes creating the offices of Chief Information Commissioners at the State level, but not made appointments.

As if to strengthen the view that the RTI Act is likely to be rendered prisoner under a bureaucratic interpretation of its scope (that it is a dangerous weapon placed in the hands of the public), the Doordarshan host Neelam Sharma harangued Mr.Habibullah asking, “in most developed countries, such legislation has been given three or four years to be implemented, so that the necessary structures are in place. Don’t you think this has been implemented in haste?”

It took members of the audience and some NGOs to set the record straight during this Doordarshan show. One member pointed out that the bureaucracy had enough time after the 2002 RTI legislation to do its job. If it had not acted to create the appropriate infrastructure to handle requests for information, it could not blame the present Government for giving it 120 days to implement the new law.

Here are some of the other interesting discussion points :

Mr.Habibullah was asked what he meant by misuse of the Act. If the bureaucracy was doing something that it did not want the world to know, particularly acting in corrupt ways, and was forced to part with that information, how did that constitute misuse?

The CIC replied that he feared that the information emanating from RTI queries would be “sensationalized” and thus misused. Of course, if some corrupt person was exposed, he “deserves to be blackmailed,” he said (some audience members asked why should any office fear blackmail if he was not doing anything illegal). 

The right to information also casts some duties on the individual, Mr.Habibullah said. The CIC was however, found to be on weak ground trying to soft-pedal questions relating to the powers of his office and his own responsibilities.

 Activist Aruna Roy said the national movement for freedom of information could not accept the exclusion of file notings from the purview of the Act. (It was pointed out by the host that this exemption was mentioned on the Ministry of Personnel website but was not a part of the law itself). It was these notings that provided insight into the decision-making process of Government, Ms. Roy added.

 An office bearer of a Delhi-based NGO, Parivartan, Mr. Arvind Kesriwal said file notings available to the NGO through the Delhi Government RTI law, showed that officials were opposed to the privatization of water supply in the national capital, but the World Bank was exerting pressure in unscrupulous ways on the Administration to achieve its commercial designs.

 Mr.Habibullah was asked what he could do about the file notings issue and he said, “I agree the Act does not say anything about it, I must see under what provision the Government has stated that file notings are exempt.”

 Will Rural India Benefit?

 Ms.Roy said there was enormous common sense shown by the less privileged citizens of the rural areas, and her struggle in Rajasthan to assert the citizens’ right to information on pending public works had succeeded with community support.

 Mr. Jayaprakash Narayan of Loksatta said the RTI would change the mindset of both bureaucrats and citizens. At present, the public servant considered himself the master and the citizen his slave. The RTI was an instrument but it would not bring about change overnight. There had to be collective assertion of rights.

 Mr. Narayan pleaded that the CIC should locate its appellate commissioners in different parts of the country, to facilitate the citizens to assert their rights, rather than expect them to travel to a centralized place.

 Productivity of official schemes will rise

 Another audience view was interesting. Mere passing of the law would lead to higher productivity, as bureaucrats were bound to fear the consequences of both corruption and inefficiency.

 Central law takes precedence

 Ms. Roy observed at one point that given a situation where both Central and State laws of Information were in place, the Central Act would prevail. Moreover, it had a penal provision of fine of Rs.250 per day of refusal to provide information without valid ground, which State Acts did not.

 The CIC in the media