Ask No Questions!

The amendment to the RTI Act will hit grassroots activism

- Bhagirath

There was a sense of irony in President Ram Nath Kovind giving assent to the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019, on August 1. After all, he was a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee that scrutinized the Right to Information Bill in 2004 and recommended that to ensure the commission’s independence and autonomy it was desirable that the chief information commissioner and information commissioners be given the status of the chief election commissioner and election commissioners. This parity between a Constitutional body like the Election Commission and a statutory body, which is the Central Information Commission, is exactly what this amendment seeks to take away, said the Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Jitendra Singh, while tabling the Bill.