Today, I am going to share about the controversial 'Right to Information Act' with you with a little attempt to let you decide whether this act is controversial in real.

Firstly, let us try to know what Right To Information (RTI) Act is. The constitution of India has establish a democratic Republic in which the Article 19 of the constitution provides the right to information to all citizens of India.

It is because democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information which are vital to is functioning. To control the corruption in administration and to hold government and their agents accountable, it is essential that citizens are given adequate information about its functioning.

In order to ensure greater and more effective access to information the parliament enacted the Freedom of Information Act in 2002. But it was not found effective due to many loopholes. So the National Advisory Council suggested certain changes in the existing law to make it more progressive, participatory and meaningful.

After studying this suggestion ,the government of India decided to repeal the Freedom of Information Act,2002 and to enact another law for providing an effective framework for enhancing the Right to Information. The new law enacted by central government came to known as Right To Information Act, 2005.

The new act received the assent of President of India on 15th June,2005. And it was enforced on 12th October,2005.

The law is applicable to whole India except Jammu and Kashmir. The new law includes establishment of an appellate machinery with investigation power to review decisions of the public information officers, penal provisions for failure to provide information as per by law, provision to ensure maximum disclosure.

Let us consider possible scenarios in an average citizen's interaction with the government under the RTI Act. An imposed system can be resisted and killed by an entrenched bureaucracy by three methods — overuse, disuse and hide-and-seek.

First, overuse. The RTI Act provides for an elaborate system of written application, acknowledgement, time limit, appeal, etc. In actual practice how many will have the time, patience and stamina to go through the whole gamut of such procedures if it is insisted upon in every case?

In other words, the bureaucracy may hit back by a too literal and procedurally rigid implementation of the Act and defeat its purpose. The bureaucracy's real power is the citizen's urgency, the high opportunity cost of delay and the high transaction costs of repeated visits to the office.

The strategy of a hostile bureaucracy will be to make the total cost of a corrupt approach appear to be less than that of a statutory approach.

Now, killing by disuse. Though it is about two years since seven State governments passed their own RTI Acts very few in and outside the government seem to know, much less care, about the Act's existence or operation; and there is no information on whether the Act has been invoked, if so, in how many cases, by what categories of citizens and with what results.

(Karnataka has an RTI Act. Yet even the Tamil Nadu Government is unable to get reliable information on Cauvery flows!) Even if the Act is invoked by citizens and requests filed, they could easily be delayed to the point of their death.

Finally, hide-and-seek. A lot of information about government schemes, policies, achievements, etc., is already published in the form of reports, publicity material, budget documents, five year plans, etc. A lot of information is also placed on the table of the legislature in the form of annual administration reports, audit reports, replies to questions, etc.

Giving this type of information will not present any difficulty. The problem arises, as it did in the case of the MKSS, when a citizen or an NGO wants to look into the internal documents and notings to see whether there has been any avoidable delay or impropriety.

Sensation-mongering media and politicians may be interested in knowing the views expressed by officers and Ministers on the files.

It is to guard against this type of inquisitiveness that the whole government culture is carefully and consciously oriented towards a single, overriding value — whatever the truth, under no circumstances shall the government appear in an adverse or embarrassing light in public eyes.

The tendency for lower level officers would be to reject, or push up to higher levels, most requests under the Act in order to avoid being blamed later. This Act continues to be under threat of pressure from public servants — our bureaucrats.

Though the Prime Minister has said that 'file notings' relating to development plans, schemes, programmes and projects should be in the ambit of the RTI, there is immense pressure on the government and the Central Information Commission to exempt these from the ambit of this Act.

The seriousness of the matter can be judged from the fact that on December 9, O P Kejariwal, one of the four Information Commissioners with the CIC, wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister expressing his concern over the eroding of the RTI by the bureaucracy and the abysmal working conditions at the apex commission.

It is a serious matter because if the exemptions under file notings related to identifiable individuals, group of individuals, organisations, appointments, matters relating to inquiries and departmental proceedings are implemented, it would amount to, as Kejariwal says, "nothing less than an effective amendment`85" It indeed raises questions on what would be the nature of the Act after file notings are exempted.

Any information which may have the potential of creating trouble for the officer concerned may be classified as file noting. Further, if the officials concerned would not be named then on whom will the responsibility of the aberration be laid?

Finally, even though the central government should be given its due for the enactment of this Act, the public should continue to lay pressure on the government for its effective implementation.

It is also essential to question the procedure of appointing the PIOs as till now those officers have been designated PIOs who have earlier denied information to public. It has been one of the burning topic for discussion in Indian media today.

People who loves this law are busy attempting to do whatever they can to save this law,so now it is your turn to decide whether this law must be killed or encouraged