Bill to amend RTI introduced amid opposition protests

NEW DELHI: The government on Friday introduced a bill in Lok Sabha to amend the Right to Information Act, which would allow the Centre to decide tenure and salaries of state and central information commissioners, amid protests from opposition parties.

Introducing the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in Lok Sabha, minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh said it aims at institutionalisation, streamlining and ease of delivery of RTI Act, adding that it as an enabling legislation for administration purposes. He claimed that the government’s commitment to transparency could not be questioned and blamed the then UPA government for not making proper rules to implement the RTI Act when it was enacted in 2005. “You have made a clumsy Act in haste. We are only trying to strengthen it,” Singh claimed. Congress, Trinamool, DMK and Bahujan Samaj Party opposed the introduction of the amendment bill, before staging a walkout.

“RTI Act is a fundamental right and this bill is an attempt to infringe on our right,” Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said. He also pointed out the bill was not circulated to members two days before its introduction as is prescribed by the rules. Shashi Tharoor of Congress alleged that the bill is “an RTI elimination bill”. AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi sought a division of votes through paper votes on whether the bill should be introduced or not. BJD abstained from voting and SP’s Mulayam Singh Yadav voted against the bill. Overall, the division of votes yielded 224 votes in favour of introduction of the bill and a mere nine against it.