NEW DELHI: In a move that clearly indicates the government’s intention of returning with the amended RTI Act, the DoPT on Friday came out with an advertisement for filling vacancies in the CIC and SICs. The advertisement says that the salary and duration of service of the information commissioner will be as “specified at the time of appointment”. In its previous advertisement issued in 2016, the salary and other terms of service was specified as being at par with that of the Election Commissioner.

The amended RTI Act, which was to be introduced this monsoon session in Parliament, proposes to make the salary and other terms of service, along with the duration of the term, at the discretion of the government. The amended RTI Act was deferred in this session following vociferous protests from activists and the Opposition.

Said Anjali Bhardwaj of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information ( NCPRI ), “It’s a clear indication that the government hasn’t given up its intention of diluting the RTI Act.” According to Bhardwaj, any move to dictate the salary or duration of service of the central and state information commissioners would lead to influencing the autonomy and functioning of the information commissions.

The BJP government’s amended RTI Act proposes to give itself powers to decide the term of office and salaries of information commissioners across the country. It includes amendments to do away with a fixed term of five years for information commissioners both at the CIC (central information commission) and SIC (state information commission) level.

The idea, say information activists, is to scale down the stature of the information commissions. “At present, the chief information commissioner has the stature and pay-scale of the chief election commissioner while the information commissioner at CIC and state chief information commissioners have the same salaries and allowances as that of election commissioners,” said Bhardwaj.

With the amendments however, that will no longer be the case.

The government on the other hand, has justified its stand by citing the nature of work being carried out by the two bodies. According to officials in the DoPT, the functions being carried out by Election Commission of India and information commissions are very different. It claims that while the ECI is a constitutional body established by clause (1) of Article 324 of the Constitution, the CIC and state information commissions are statutory bodies established under the provisions of RTI Act.

