New Delhi: The National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing concern about the Central government’s failure to prescribe rules regarding the salary, tenure and terms of service of information commissioners, after the enactment of the Right to Information Amendment Act, 2019.

The rights organisation has urged the prime minister to ensure that the government takes immediate steps to formulate the necessary rules, in accordance with the procedures laid down in the Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy of 2014, which requires all draft rules to be placed in the public domain for comments/suggestions of people.

In the letter, signed by activists Anjali Bhardwaj, Nikhil Dey, Venkatesh Nayak, Pankti Jog, Pradip Pradhan, Rakesh Dubbed and Dr. Shaikh Ghulam Rasool among others, the Campaign has stated that it is “extremely concerned about the central government’s failure to prescribe rules regarding the salary, tenure and terms of service of information commissioners”.

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It noted that the Right to Information Amendment Act, 2019 brought in amendments to the RTI law despite public protests across the country. “There were no public consultations on the amendments and the bill was not referred to any Parliamentary deliberative committee,” the letter to Modi stated..

The activists lamented that the RTI Amendment Act seriously weakened the law by undermining the autonomy of information commissions.

They said Sections 13, 15 and 27 of the RTI Act, 2005 were amended to empower the central government to prescribe through rules, the tenure, salaries, allowances and other terms of service of the chief and other information commissioners of the Central Information Commission (CIC) and all state information commissions (SICs).

But, despite three months having passed since the amendments received the president’s assent, the activists complained that the Centre has still not prescribed the requisite rules. “As a result, vacancies in information commissions persist, leading to huge backlogs and concomitant long delays in the disposal of appeals and complaints of people. This is hindering the effective functioning of the RTI Act,” they charged.

The letter also made a mention of recent media reports which stated that draft rules have been prepared by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT). “These are, however, not available in the public domain. We urge the central government to take immediate steps to formulate the necessary rules, in accordance with the procedures laid down in the Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy of 2014, which requires all draft rules to be placed in the public domain for comments/suggestions of people,” the activists wrote.