It is official. The government is contemplating amendments to the Right to Information Act, 2005.
The Department of Personnel and Training, which admitted to considering about a dozen amendments to the Act in an April 30, 2010 letter to RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal, was upfront about the nature of at least two of the amendments: exempting the office of the Chief Justice from the RTI Act and barring applications which could be deemed to be “frivolous or vexatious.” Other amendments proposed relate to “disclosure of Cabinet papers”; constitution of “benches” of the Central Information Commission; and exemptions for organisations possessing sensitive information.
Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan recently wrote to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking exemption for his office from the Act.
