Official secrets

The Right To Information (RTI) Act will come into force from mid-October and there is some disquiet over this in the corridors of power. Inevitable perhaps. A system that had functioned under the security blanket of colonial laws like the Official Secrets Act, will take a while to accommodate itself to a right to information regime.

The question is this: do agencies that are now expressing their trepidations about the new law — like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) — have a case? They argue that they should be granted immunity under the new law given the sensitive nature of their work. So should they, indeed? We think not — for two basic reasons. One, there are adequate provisions in the new law that protect the government, institutions and individuals. For instance, the government is under no obligation to provide information that would “prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India” or that would amount to contempt of court or would constitute a breach of privilege of Parliament or state legislature. Information that has no relationship to “public activity or interest”, or which would amount to an “unwarranted invasion of privacy of the individual” is similarly proscribed. Coming to our second objection, both the CBI and the CVC generate a tremendous amount of information that is in the public interest since it involves corruption and human rights violations.

The idea is to extend the scope of the RTI law, rather than narrow its application to the point where it becomes a case of DOA, dead on arrival. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had three expectations from this piece of legislation when it was passed in May: one, that the benefits of growth could flow to all sections of people; two, that corruption would be eliminated as far as possible; and, three, that the concerns of the ordinary person would inform all processes of governance. Instead of cribbing and trying to protect their turf, the CBI and CVC should now help in creating a viable RTI-compliant regime.