There are 26000 cases pending with CIC. There are fears that pendency will take the sheen off the RTI act. Why does the commission have only six information commissioners against the sanctioned strength of ten?

It is not the duty of commission to fill up these vacancies; this is the responsibility of the central government. We have written to the government from time to time to fill up these posts. We need all the ten vacancies to be filled soon.

As the RTI act completed five years in 2011, there was a debate: on one hand, the political leadership wanted to review it, leading to fears of dilution and on the other hand the activists want more power. What are your thoughts on ‘RTI 2.0’?

I have not heard any serious discussion about the amendment within the government and don’t even see there is any need. The reason probably for not amending the act is the pressure from the civil society. It is resisting that the law should not be tampered with and it should be allowed to roll out the way it is. As of now I don’t think it is being amended anytime soon.

Adding to that question, there have been instances of RTI activists getting attacked or even killed. Is there some way to offer them protection?

People who are seeking the information under the act need to be protected. But the law and order or the protection of an individual is a responsibility of state. If such incidents have taken place in some state then state governments or state police there must act to bring the culprits to book. If immediate action is taken against such people then people will be afraid of taking such extreme step. Even if we make a rule, there will be no way we can protect such people because number of people asking for information runs into millions.

You completed a year as head of CIC in December. How do you see CIC evolving?

CIC has evolved extremely well. I think we have very sound principals which were laid down by my predecessors. The only worry is that appeals and complaints are mounting. If they keep mounting like this and there is no corresponding mechanism to dispose of these cases quickly then the delay in filing of appeal and its disposal will only increase which is not good sign. We do not want CIC to turn into any other law court where cases keep pending for years. But then all of us, the activists and people in the commission, will have to think about the way out because number of RTI requests are only going up. And even if we fill up all the ten posts, cases cannot be handled.

These are the things about which one must give a serious thought. We have not come with any suggestions of what can be other ways, because some of the ways could be extremely radical which may not have acceptability. For example if we decide to give short orders, it may not be easily accepted. But that we can decide 100 cases a day. You can not give any suggestions to dismantle cases in law courts but this is not a law court. This is a people’s court and there is no distance between this commission and people, they are part of it.

We are seriously thinking of giving very short orders and some day we will try that in the commission to see how it is accepted.

Within the present format also there is a scope to increase the number of disposals. Some of the commissioners are doing huge number of cases within a month.

Are officials growing comfortable with increased transparency or is there some resistance, the tendency to hold back information?

The tendency to hold back information will always be there. We have not reached the stage where people are happy to disclose information on their own. Therefore we have to have the law and we have to enforce it as well. There has been reluctance because it is not easy to access information at present. But I feel that with more use of information technology in government offices less work will be done on paper and more work done on computer – it would be much easier for them to access that information.

 
Do you think more awareness is needed about the law?

Awareness about the law among the citizen and among the government is still not much. People know that there is something called RTI, majority of citizens may not even know that. And those who know they do not know what it can achieve. We sometimes receive applications which show that people think it is some substitute of grievance redressal. It can be grievance redressal mechanism but not always. People have developed lot of expectations from the RTI. But even now its awareness is till urban or semi urban areas. It has not spread much.

But through campaigns we can spread the word. Jaago Grahak Jaago, campaign of the Consumer affairs ministry has really put impact on citizen. And there are private companies which are coming up with advertisements for their products along with this campaign. So we should do something similar with the RTI – where the social message can be embedded with other messages. 

As for the ambit of the law, there have been demands – and even one court judgment – to bring public-private partnerships (PPPs) within the RTI Act. There have been demands to bring bodies like the BCCI (cricket board) under the RTI. Is there any mechanism to review the ambit and extend when necessary?
 
On case to case basis this has to be decided. Within the parameters of a public authority when a case comes the commission decides whether it is covered by RTI or not. Otherwise it will need amendment to the law to say that a PPP will be covered under RTI. But right now there is no upfront definition of this kind.

Last month, at an RTI workshop, you spoke frankly about the need for a strong Lokpal and you also said people had lost faith and trust in the government.

It would be very unfortunate if people would lose trust in the government. But I do not think that people have lost faith in the government. This can be proved with huge turnout of people voting in UP or Punjab elections. So it is not correct to say that people have lost trust in the government. People have lost faith in many government servants.

There is certainly a need for a strong agency, whatever its name, to take up cases of corruption and follow it relentlessly till the guilty is punished. But the fear is that if we bring too many such interventions without any structural change, it will not be of use.
The change in the system to stop corruption cannot happen by policing. That can happen when we recruit good people to the government at all levels. And also they need to undergo regular training. There should be change in the system of hierarchy as well.