Discuss the Right to information and underline challenges being posed before it.

Discuss the Right to information and underline challenges being posed before it. (2016, 15 Marks)

Since State of U.P. v. Raj Narain (1975) the Supreme Court has read a right to know into Article 19(1)(a); the Right to Information Act 2005 made it enforceable. Amartya Sen counts transparency guarantees among the instrumental freedoms of development. In India, the right was pulled from below, not granted from above.

A Right Written from Below

  • The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (1990) of Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh began with underpaid wages on relief works, which labourers could prove only from muster rolls.
  • Its jan sunwai (public hearing, from December 1994) read the records aloud in the village under the slogan hamara paisa, hamara hisab. The Beawar dharna (1996) gave rise to the NCPRI, which drafted the law.
  • Tamil Nadu and Goa (1997) and Rajasthan (2000) legislated first; the Freedom of Information Act 2002, never notified, gave way to the 2005 Act.

What the Act Does

  • It covers every public authority, including bodies substantially financed by government. A written request must be answered within 30 days, or 48 hours where life or liberty is at stake.
  • It imposes a Section 4 duty of proactive disclosure. Appeals go up two tiers to independent Information Commissions. A penalty of ₹250 a day, capped at ₹25,000, falls on the officer personally. Section 8‘s exemptions carry a public-interest override.
  • Its users are mostly ordinary citizens chasing rations, pensions and wages. The Chief Justice’s office was held to be a public authority (Subhash Chandra Agarwal, 2019). In Partha Chatterjee‘s terms, the Act turns the bargaining of political society into the entitlements of civil society.

Challenges

  • Weakened independence. The RTI (Amendment) Act 2019 let the Centre fix Commissioners’ tenure and salaries; its Rules cut terms to three years. An adjudicator whose pay and term are set by the executive he reviews is not independent.
  • Vacancies and pendency. Anjali Bhardwaj v. Union of India (2019) ordered timely appointments, yet over four lakh appeals were pending across commissions in mid-2024, and several state commissions were defunct. The CIC reached full strength only in December 2025, under Raj Kumar Goyal.
  • Privacy as a shield. Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act 2023, in force since 13 November 2025, replaced Section 8(1)(j) with a flat exemption for personal information. Muster rolls and beneficiary lists can now be refused. A challenge is pending in the Supreme Court.
  • Violence. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative counts over a hundred RTI users killed since 2005. The Whistle Blowers Protection Act 2014 has never been operationalised, and its diluting 2015 amendment lapsed in 2019.
  • Zones outside. Parties ignore the CIC’s June 2013 ruling that six national parties are public authorities; the matter is pending in the Supreme Court. PM CARES is treated as outside the Act.
  • Bureaucratic culture. Low awareness, evasive replies, weak Section 4 compliance and rare penalties persist.

Conclusion

RTI remains India’s most democratically used statute. The threat is erosion by amendment, vacancy and exemption rather than repeal. Protecting it needs independent, fully staffed commissions, restored public-interest balancing, working whistle-blower protection and a culture of proactive disclosure.