New Delhi:
A Supreme Court ruling on Thursday will change how the Right to Information (RTI) machinery - information commissions in states and at the Centre - will work. The court has said that all information commissions will have to include members with legal backgrounds and wants all of them to work with two-member benches. One of the two members of each bench will have be of a legal background.
The ruling is not only going to completely alter the way RTI has been working, but also puts a question mark on its functioning, activists have said. The Right to Information - a showpiece achievement of UPA-1 - was made into a law in 2005 and was brought in as a measure of transparency to fight corruption, after activists pushed it for several years.
The Supreme Court's order also says that a person who either is or was a high court judge to be made information commissioner and that the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) at the Centre should only be a person who is or has been a Chief Justice at a high court or the Chief Justice of India. Currently, the CIC is a former bureaucrat.
The Central Information Commission says it is studying the order to figure out its implications.
The court passed its verdict on a petition filed by Namit Sharma who said that since the work of the CIC under the RTI Act is mainly connected with the law, members in the transparency panel should have judicial background. However, government had opposed the petition contending that it could not be made mandatory that the members should have judicial background.
Some critics say that this order seems like the judiciary wants to corner the RTI machinery. The other side though has suggested it could give information commissioners and RTI more independence. Right to information activists have been campaigning for their inclusion on information commissions as well. There is a backlog of more than 30,000 appeals with the CIC currently.
Information commissioners are currently selected by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, Law Minister and leader of opposition after an open applications process.
The ruling is not only going to completely alter the way RTI has been working, but also puts a question mark on its functioning, activists have said. The Right to Information - a showpiece achievement of UPA-1 - was made into a law in 2005 and was brought in as a measure of transparency to fight corruption, after activists pushed it for several years.
The Supreme Court's order also says that a person who either is or was a high court judge to be made information commissioner and that the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) at the Centre should only be a person who is or has been a Chief Justice at a high court or the Chief Justice of India. Currently, the CIC is a former bureaucrat.
The Central Information Commission says it is studying the order to figure out its implications.
The court passed its verdict on a petition filed by Namit Sharma who said that since the work of the CIC under the RTI Act is mainly connected with the law, members in the transparency panel should have judicial background. However, government had opposed the petition contending that it could not be made mandatory that the members should have judicial background.
Some critics say that this order seems like the judiciary wants to corner the RTI machinery. The other side though has suggested it could give information commissioners and RTI more independence. Right to information activists have been campaigning for their inclusion on information commissions as well. There is a backlog of more than 30,000 appeals with the CIC currently.
Information commissioners are currently selected by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, Law Minister and leader of opposition after an open applications process.
Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world
