The Right to Information Act- Recent Amendments and Time Period for Providing Information

The Right to Information Act- Relevance for UPSC Exam

• GS Paper 2: Important aspects of governance- Citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.

The Right to Information Act

• The Right to Information Act is revolutionary legislation that aims to promote transparency in government institutions in India.
• The Right to Information Act came into existence in 2005, after sustained efforts of anti-corruption activists.
• We have already discussed the key concepts of the Right to Information Act, historical background and its objectives, Key Provisions of the RTI Act, and the Applicability of the RTI Act.
• In this article, we will discuss Recent Amendments to the RTI Act and the time period within which a public authority shall provide information to the information seeker citizen.

The Right to Information Act- Time Period for Providing information

• In Normal Situations: information is to be provided to an applicant within 30 days from the receipt of the application by the public authority.
• In Life-Threatening Situations: Information shall be supplied within 48 hours by the concerned public authority.
• In case the application is sent through the Assistant Public Information Officer or it is sent to a wrong public authority, five days shall be added to the period of thirty days or 48 hours, as the case may be.

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The Right to Information Act- Recent Amendments

• The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill 2013: It removes political parties from the ambit of the definition of public authorities and hence from the purview of the RTI Act.
• Draft Provision of 2017: it provides for closure of case in case of death of applicant can lead to more attacks on the lives of whistleblowers.
• The Right to Information (Amendment) Act 2019: It seeks to give the central government the power to fix the tenures and salaries of state and central information commissioners, which are statutorily protected under the RTI Act.
  • It proposes to replace the fixed 5-year tenure with as much prescribed by the government.
  • The move will dilute the autonomy and independence of CIC.