PIL filed in SC against RTI amendments

Retired civil servant and social activist Arun Bhatia has filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court against the proposed amendments to the Right to Information law. He has urged the Court to declare them as 'unconstitutional'.

In his petition sent to the Court, Bhatia has said, 'We have been given the right to information decades behind other democracies and are now proposing to cripple it by denying access to file notings'.

'The proposed amendments to the Act, removing file notes from its purview, is a retrograde step and needs to be prevented by judicial intervention', it added.

With the advance of transparency and information sharing, the bureaucrats and politicians, who manage the nation, see their empires crumbling, the former bureaucrat said.

"The prime minister has said that file notings on development and social issues would be disclosed. But the government amendment has not defined and listed the issues that are not in these two categories and are therefore protected from disclosure of notings. A comprehensive list of excluded issues should be called from the government. It would then be clear what notings the government wished to keep hidden from public view', the petition said.

'Presumably, issues pertaining to personnel management such as transfers, postings, promotions, etc, were not considered development or social issues and their notings would remain secret.

This would seriously violate the right to information. Transfers are a toll most frequently and blatantly abused to shelter corruption', Bhatia said.