SC notice to central govt on petition challenging changes to RTI law

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to the government on a petition alleging that it had diluted the law to give itself absolute, discretionary powers over the tenure, salaries and working conditions of information commissioners, a fact which it claimed would compromise its independence and integrity.

The RTI Act came into being in 2005 and had been working well. But the government has in recent days made several changes through the RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019, which activists allege would compromise the working of the institution.

These include a rule that reduces the tenure of information commissioners to 3 years from 5 and made it subject to the will of the government. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has challenged this amendment through a petition. The petition was filed and argued by advocate Sunil Fernandes.


A bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud issued notices to which the government will have to respond within four weeks after hearing short arguments from Fernandes. The law ministry and the Ministry of Personnel will have to respond to the court notices.

Justice KM Joseph was the other judge. The petition filed by the Rajya Sabha member challenged the constitutional validity of the amendment and the rules as violative of the parent Act and urged the court to strike them down. “There is no rational nexus between the Amendment Act/Rules and the object of the Act,” it said.

It infringes fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 14 (equality), 19(1)(a) (freedom of speech and expression) and 21 (right to life) of the Constitution. The petition also alleged that these amendments were based on extraneous considerations and had been drawn up without due application of mind contrary to earlier court rulings on the issue.

The top court has earlier held that right to know was part of the citizen’s right to speech and expression.

The Act, Ramesh claimed, had provided for a non-partisan process of appointing information commissioners and had protected their tenures and service conditions from being changed adversely to protect their independence. But the recent amendments had undone all these built in safeguards, he alleged.