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Right to Information : Government backtracks on file notings

	August 21, 2006

Pressure from non-governmental organisations, the Left followed by Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s directive has resulted in the Manmohan Singh Government shelving the proposal to amend the Right to Information Act to keep most file notings out of public domain. Reports say that Sonia Gandhi asked the Government to reconsider the move which would have enabled the bureaucracy to protect confidentiality of notings on files.



Official sources said that Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh received representations from several quarters against the proposed amendments. The UPA chairperson is believed to have advised the government that there should be wider consultations to sort out the issue. The Prime Minister has asked the Ministry of Personnel to keep in abeyance the controversial amendments.



As per the Government’s view, file notings were never within the purview of the Right to Information Act as passed by Parliament. Government’s view was that neither the Group of Ministers nor the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which had gone into the Right to Information Bill, had intended to include file notings in the definition of information in the legislation.



A controversy arose because the Central Information Commission (CIC) interpreted Section 2(f) of the RTI Act to include “file notings.” As CIC member O.P. Kejriwal told the media in July 2006, “Information minus the notings amounts to taking the life out of the RTI Act.”



Kejriwal’s dissent prompted the Prime Minister’s Office to issue an elaborate explanation on July 26, 2006. In this it was clarified that even after the amendment the “file notings of all plans, schemes and programmes of the Government that relate to the development and social issues shall be disclosed.”



According to officials, it would mean that only a small portion of the file notings relating to “personnel-related matters like examination, assessment and evaluation of recruitment, disciplinary proceedings, etc.” was being kept out of the disclosure purview.



Nonetheless, sections of civil society, as also the Information Commissioners, were not mollified. Social activist Anna Hazare of Maharashtra went on a fast.



The decision to defer making changes in the Right to Information Act is in response to the protests. However, official sources were keen on stressing that the chapter on “file notings” had not been closed, and that a comprehensive dialogue was needed.





Sonia’s intervention



Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Pachauri, who confirmed on Saturday, August 19, that the Bill to amend the Act would not be introduced in the last week of the Monsoon session of Parliament, left no doubt that the Congress chief’s intervention made the Government change its mind. Just a day earlier, on Friday, August 18, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi had said that there was a possibility of the Bill being introduced in the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Parliament.



The attempt to dilute the transparency provisions of the RTI had angered activists across the country. Even the Administrative Reforms Commission had opposed keeping file notings out of the public eye unless it involved serious issues of national security. The opposition BJP and the Left, which supports the UPA Government from outside, had warned against tampering with the Act, saying they would block any attempt to have the Bill passed by Parliament.



With Sonia Gandhi putting her foot down, Minister of State in the PMO Prithviraj Chavan rushed to Maharashtra and managed to persuade social activist Anna Hazare to give up his fast-unto-death over the government move.



“We would have been happier if the government had completely withdrawn the amendments,” said social activist Aruna Roy. Welcoming the move though, she described it as a victory for the Indian people.



While activists greeted the news with jubilation, there was considerable unease in the higher echelons of the bureaucracy.



“No official would like to take unpleasant decisions knowing that his notings are being preserved for public view for posterity,” said a senior bureaucrat.



The debate over file notings has been a long one. In 2004, when the NDA was in power, all file notings were exempted from the purview of the Bill, a decision that was supported by all political parties.



There was little change in this point of view when the UPA Government assumed office. Even when it came to the social development sector, the general public in the US, Canada and the UK had no access to file notings.