Stating that the RTI Act has been on a decaying stage, RTI activist have planned a series of meeting and measures to ensure that the transparency in the Act continues to have an impact.
To infuse more life, meetings are planned, forming public opinion on orders that are increasingly being cited to deny information under RTI, functioning of information commission and countering the narrative that RTI users are blackmailers and extortionists.
"It has been observed for sometime now that RTI is slowly becoming weaker and lesser effective. So instead of just being a silent spectator, we have decided to call for a meeting to initiate measures that would help the Act and bring back people's faith," said Shailesh Gandhi, former central information commissioner.
Gandhi shared that they will also discuss Girish Deshpande's judgement. "Increasingly a number of RTI applications are being rejected to by sighting the Girish Deshpande judgement. It now appears that at this rate RTI will be perceived as Consumer Protection Act within the next five to ten years. The Commissioners will continue, a few committed RTI activists will work hard to gather information and the nation will claim it has a vibrant transparency law," said Gandhi.
He added, "Some departments are also being put in exemption list too. This is one Act passed, where the people can question the authority and seek information. We want to ensure that does not decay."
Bhaskar Prabhu, another RTI activist said, "It is a good effort by former central information commissioner. The commission needs to take non-implementation of the RTI Act seriously. The SC judgement that is issued has been cited to not give information."
