New Delhi: The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, seeking significant changes to the transparency law, was passed in the Rajya Sabha despite an uproar by the Opposition parties who said the amendments diluted the existing RTI Act 2005. The bill aims to grant greater powers to the Centre in deciding the terms of the chief information commissioners and information commissioners at both the Central and state levels.
The bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha by a voice vote amid a walkout by the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Trinamul Congress. The bill was not referred to a select committee, as demanded by the Opposition, with 117 members voting against referring the bill to a select committee, and 75 members voting for it. The Centre also made a turnaround by bringing over fence-sitters Biju Janata Dal, Telangana Rashtra Samithi and YSR Congress, who lent support to the bill. The bill was passed Monday in the Lok Sabha, where the government enjoys a huge majority.
“There is no attempt, motivation or design to curtail the independence autonomy of Right to Information,” said minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions Jitendra Singh, seeking to allay the fears of the Opposition members.
“The matter of sending it to a select committee was the prerogative of members, but it should be determined on the merits of the bill,” he added. “Why this amendment — a point was made that statutory bodies can also be conferred constitutional status. A CIC is equivalent to the chief election commissioner — a verdict passed by the CIC is liable to be challenged in the high court. So from a layman’s point of view, a SC judgment is being challenged in the HC,” Mr Singh said.
The RTI Bill provoked sharp exchanges in the House on Thursday, with the Opposition demanding it be referred to a select committee. The government and the Congress-led Opposition in the Rajya Sabha locked horns over the issue of sending the RTI (Amendment) Bill to a select committee of the House, forcing four adjournments. As soon as the House resumed in the afternoon, deputy chairman Harivansh asked the minister of state to move the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill.
After moving it for consideration, the minister urged the Chair to hold discussions on the bill and then decide on the motions for its passage as well as the issue of sending the draft law to a select committee. Amendments seeking to send the bill to a select committee were defeated.
The government stuck to its point that the motions for sending the bill to select committee and passage of the draft law would be taken up after the discussions. The House saw four brief adjournments amidst the din as the Congress, DMK, CPI, CPI(M), TMC and AAP members remained in the well and raised slogans against the government.
The Opposition members stuck to their demand to move the motion for sending the bill to select committee before initiating discussion. Before the stalemate, TMC leader Derek O’Brien told the Chair that the House took up two short duration discussions and three call attention motions during this session.
He said that as per convention, the House should take up at least one short duration discussion in a week and thus sufficient time was not being given to discussing major issues. He also said a short duration discussion on the MSME ministry was listed for discussion, but it had later vanished.
On this, Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said the House was still short of two short duration discussions in this session. He added: “We have been passing legislation. There has to be discussion on those.” Parliamentary affairs minister Prahlad Joshi said: “I assure that next week, we are ready to clear the backlog (of short duration discussion).”
