7 months ago
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Even arsenic Karnataka has the dubious favoritism of having the 2nd highest fig of pending appeals and complaints successful the state nether the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005, Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar alleged that the NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been consistently eroding and undermining transparency nether the RTI Act since 2014.
According to the findings of the ‘Report Card connected the Performance of Information Commissions successful India, 2024-25’, by Satark Nagarik Sangathan (SNS), Karnataka — with 47,825 backlog appeals and complaints — ranked 2nd successful the state aft Maharashtra (95,340). The estimated waiting clip for disposal of an entreaty successful Karnataka is 1 twelvemonth and 9 months, it said.
20th day of RTI Act
On the 20th day of the RTI Act, which came into being connected October 12, 2005, during the UPA authorities led by erstwhile premier minister, the precocious Manmohan Singh, Mr. Shivakumar said, “The main nonsubjective of the Act was to empower citizens to entree accusation held by nationalist authorities, making authorities functioning much transparent and accountable.”
However, the Karnataka State Contractors’ Association has charged the Congress authorities with “doubling” corruption compared to the erstwhile BJP government led by Basavaraj Bommai, and alleged rampant corruption successful immoderate of the departments of the State government.
Mr. Shivakumar said, “RTI has been a lifeline for the astir marginalised sections of society, empowering citizens to unafraid their rightful ration entitlements, timely pensions, unpaid wages, and scholarships. It has ensured that the poorest are not denied the astir basal necessities of life, turning accusation into a instrumentality for justness and dignity.”
‘Increasing enforcement influence’
In a release, the Deputy Chief Minister accused the Modi authorities of weakening independency and expanding enforcement influence. He alleged that “the 2019 amendment diluted the autonomy of accusation commissions”.
The DCM besides criticised the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 and claimed that amended provisions of the Act (Section 8 (1) (J) of RTI) prevented disclosure of accusation linked to nationalist duties oregon usage of nationalist funds, undermining the transparency rule of RTI.
“By treating captious nationalist information arsenic ‘private’, the amendment opens the doorway to contradict disclosure of elector lists, expenditure records, oregon different cardinal nationalist involvement documents. This straight undermines nationalist audit and scrutiny, the precise process done which galore cases similar misuse of MPLAD funds and fake beneficiaries nether the MNREGA person travel to light,” claimed Mr. Shivakumar.
Restore independency of Information Commissions
The lawman main curate said, “The Whistle-Blowers Protection Act was passed but ne'er got operationalised.”
Among different demands, helium said the Indian National Congress demanded restoration of independency of Information Commissions by undoing the 2019 amendments and ensuring fixed five-year tenure with unafraid work conditions, and providing beardown extortion for RTI users and whistle-blowers done implementation of the Act.
