Hindustan Times via Getty Images Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 10th Annual Convocation of Central Information Commission (CIC) at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi. At the inauguration of the CIC's new building in March 2018, Modi said, "Transparency and accountability are very essential for democratic and participative governance." and institutions like the CIC work as a "catalyst for trust based governance".

The Right to Information (RTI) Act is under fire again. As per media reports, the government has put forth a proposal to undermine the autonomy of information commissioners - the Modi sarkar wants to empower itself to receive and probe complaints against them. Information commissions adjudicate on appeals and complaints of citizens who have been denied access to information under the sunshine law. In recent times, the commission has ordered disclosure of information which has proved to be inconvenient and embarrassing for the government―from disclosure of educational qualifications of the Prime Minister to details of deliberations in the Reserve Bank of India about demonetisation. According to reports, the government has proposed setting up of two bureaucrat-led committees; one to receive and decide on complaints against the Chief Information Commissioner and another for complaints against Information Commissioners. For complaints against the Chief, the committee shall comprise the Cabinet Secretary, the Secretary of DoPT and a retired Chief Information Commissioner. For complaints against information commissioners, the committee will consist of the Secretary (Coordination) in the Cabinet Secretariat, the Secretary of DoPT and a retired commissioner. For the latest elections news and more, follow HuffPost India on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our newsletter.

Empowering such sarkari committees to receive and decide complaints against information commissioners is a clear attempt to destroy their independence. It would become a means to intimidate commissioners to toe the government line – directions to disclose inconvenient information could invite adverse consequences. Apart from being extremely regressive, the move would be illegal as the RTI Act envisages the Information Commissions as independent institutions and provides several safeguards to insulate them from government control and interference. Section 14(1) of the law states that commissioners can be removed only by the President “on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity after the Supreme Court, on a reference made to it by the President, has, on inquiry, reported that the Chief Information Commissioner or any Information Commissioner, as the case may be, ought on such ground be removed”. Another problem with the BJP government’s proposal is that it has been drafted in absolute secrecy without any public consultation – in contravention of the fundamental democratic principles of transparency and peoples’ participation in policy making. This is not the first time that the current government has tried to stifle the autonomy of the transparency watchdogs. The latest proposal comes in the backdrop of amendments that the BJP government was surreptitiously trying to push in 2018. The amendments sought to empower the Central government to decide the tenure, salaries, allowances and other terms of service of all information commissioners in the country, despite the fact that these are already defined in the RTI Act.

Empowering such sarkari committees to receive and decide complaints against information commissioners is a clear attempt to destroy their independence. It would become a means to intimidate commissioners to toe the government line – directions to disclose inconvenient information could invite adverse consequences.