“Frivolous, vexatious use of RTI Act serves little productive social purpose, is a drain on public resources”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday called for maintaining a “fine balance” between the Right to Information (RTI) and the right to privacy, the latter of “which stems out of the Fundamental Right to Life and liberty. The citizens’ right to know should definitely be circumscribed if disclosure of information encroaches upon someone’s personal privacy.”
He announced that the government was considering the “issue of [enacting] a separate legislation on privacy” — an expert group, headed by the former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, Justice A.P. Shah, was working on it.
Dr. Singh’s views on an individual’s privacy are significant, coming in the wake of recent statements made by Union Ministers in support of Robert Vadra, Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law, following RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal’s accusations against the dealings of the company owned by Mr. Vadra with housing major DLF. They had termed it as “an issue between two private individuals.”
The Prime Minister, who was inaugurating the seventh annual convention of Information Commissioners here, said: “There are concerns about frivolous and vexatious use of the [RTI] Act in demanding information, the disclosure of which cannot possibly serve any public purpose. Sometimes, information covering a long time-span or a large number of cases is sought in an omnibus manner with the objective of discovering an inconsistency or mistake which can be criticised. Such queries, besides serving little productive social purpose, are also a drain on the resources of the public authorities, diverting precious man hours that could be put to better use.”
Dr. Singh also spoke of there being concerns regarding possible infringement of personal privacy while providing information under the RTI Act. He wanted the convention’s delegates to address issues like how much information entities set up in the Public Private Partnership mode should be obliged to disclose under the RTI Act. “Blanket extension of the Act to such bodies may discourage private enterprises from entering into partnerships with the public sector entity. A blanket exclusion on the other hand may harm the cause of accountability of public officials.”
Constructive use
Dr. Singh said he believed that everyone shared a responsibility to promote a more constructive and productive use of the RTI Act. “This important legislation should not be only about criticising, ridiculing, and running down public authorities. It should be more about promoting transparency and accountability, spreading information and awareness and empowering our citizen,” he said.
There was also a need to change perceptions about the RTI. It should not be viewed as an irritant, “but something that is good for us collectively,” the PM said.
“Role of an umpire”
Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra felt excessive “judicialisation” of Information Commissions would deprive them of a flexible style of functioning. The approach of the Commissions, he said, had always been to act as an umpire standing right on the field along with the players, and not to sit on a pedestal and pronounce oracles.
Keywords: RTI Act, Manmohan Singh, Central Information Commission
Dr Singh is an economist, not a lawyer. Therefore his views on RTI are
not that important.
Privacy must be made a scarce and so precious commodity in areas where
even one rupee of public money is involved.
Thanks to the RTI, atleast it has helped to create a sense of fear among
corrupt politicians. But Mr. Singh's comments are contradictory. On one
hand he speaks of transparency and on the other he avoids criticism and
its role as a watchdog.
When the Civil Society rose against corruption in high places especially ministers and officials, the Government asked , inter alia, why the civil society did not include, in their agenda, corruption in the corporate world. But now, the FM says that Vadra-DLF transaction is a "private dealing" and cannot be investigated. And the PM says that the RTI Act should not be put to frivilous use or in a manner likely to affect individual's privacy . The(weak) defence is put up for obvious reasons.
The Right to Information Act 2005 has adequate safeguards against the
right to privacy. Invoking the latter to attack on the former is just a
symptom of fear of public disclosure of public information. A public limited company is a public entity and the provisions of the
Companies Act, 1956 make it clear that the public should be given to
access public information held by such an entity.
"There are concerns about frivolous and vexatious use of the [RTI] Act in demanding information, the disclosure of which cannot possibly serve any public purpose." Let the PM point out one case in which it did not serve public purpose. How is it vexatious? What does the PM mean by this? Is exposing corruption of his team of ministers and the corporates that prop him up frivolous? If he does not know how democracy works, let him resign. We in India do not want men with dictatorial mentality to head our government. We believe in transparency, which is what the PM fears. Doesn't this fear imply there are more shady deals like the 2G, coalgate, CWG, etc., going on under his nose that he wants to hide?
We have a right to know what impacts us citizens directly or indirectly. If your personal behaviour or actions impact citizens then we have a right to know as well.
Yeah right! And the balance should be heavily tilted towards Privacy!.... Mr Prime Minister!
It seems now, they are afraid of the material that is coming out due to the provisions of RTI. So, this is baseless allegation taking undue cover of Private secrecey.
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