Amendments to RTI Act regressive, protest dilution, says NAPM

Calling the amendments as “regressive,” the organisation said, “The proposed amendments are aimed primarily at undermining the independence and autonomy of information commissions, thereby diluting India’s strongest and most widely used institutional framework for transparency.” It also said that it was a matter of “grave concern” that the amendments to the Act were introduced amidst “a shroud of secrecy and there were no public consultations.”

Explained: What has changed in RTI Act? Why are Opposition parties protesting?

Enacted in 2005, the RTI Act has defined both the time of service and the status of information commissioners. Once appointed, information commissioners — both state and central — will have a tenure of five years or till they attain the age of 65 years (whichever comes first). Also, salaries of the central information commissioners were kept equivalent to that of the chief election commission while those of state information commissioners equivalent to the chief secretary of the state.

The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 does away with both the tenure and salary structure of information commissioners and instead give the central government carte blanche in deciding both.