Right to Information act 2005

02 Apr Right to Information act 2005

(GS PAPER 2, Transparency and Accountability

Source- Pib)

Context

Almost 40% of Right to Information requests in 2019-20 have been rejected without including any valid reason and in the RTI act Exemptions.

 Important points

• Central Information Commission annual report covers more than 2000 public authorities across the central government and then as the union territories
• Public authorities under the central government received 13.7 lakh RTI request in 2019 out of which 58634 were rejected
•  The MHA  rejected 20% of all its received application
• The Finance ministry rejected 40% of its total RTI
•  It permits denial of access to personal information If disclosure has no relationship to any public activity
•  rejection rate has fallen since the 13.9%  rate in 2005-06  and have been steadily trending downwards the 8.4 % spike in 2014-15

 RTI act 2005

•  Supreme Court in Mr Kulwal v/s Jaipur Municipal Corporation case, 1986 directed that freedom of speech and expression under article 19 cannot be fully used by the citizen without a RTI act
•  finally the Indian parliament enacted The Right to Information Act in 2005

 Important sections of the act

•  Section 4-  suo moto disclosure of information by each public equality
•  Section 8(1)-  exam against furnishing information under RTI act

– Khyati Khare

Daily Current Affairs of 2nd April 2021