The essence of survival is "knowing"

     In any modern day democracy whichever political ideology it follows, knowing is the basic right. The Right to Information Act(RTI), 2005 was one such law which gave the people "The right to know". It was a landmark law to truly empower the people to question.

    The Supreme Court held that "The right to know" is a fundamental right which comes under the precinct of Article 19(1) of the constitution under Freedom of speech and expression. The RTI act was basically validated by the Supreme Court as constitutional and essential. It recognised the right to free speech and expression as a holistic right not to be read literally and of course with reasonable restrictions.

    The RTI act has been used over the years by the public and even the poorest of the poor to extract information from various government departments. It was also used to act as a deterrent to corruption by unearthing some of the huge scams like the 2G scam. It was also used to extract information from various departments of education to find any malpractice  and maladministration through manipulation of marks and the like. The RTI had become the tool of the people to question about the governance and other issues.

    The RTI act consists of Central information commissioners at the central level and State Information commissioners at the state level whose tenure was fixed for a period of 5 years. This security of tenure provided the commissioners a safety net to act and dispense information without bias. But the recent amendment to the RTI act which takes away the security of tenure of Information commissioners and leaves their salaries to be decided by the Central government is a step to snatch away the power of the people to question the government.

    Any government that claims to be transparent and less-corrupt need not worry about the information dispensed by the information commissioners until and unless it affects the security of the State and unity and integrity of the nation. But what constitutes National Security is not defined anywhere and can be used by the executive to cover up their scams and mis-governance. Years of struggle for the RTI act to come to effect have been reversed. There must be a proper mechanism to decide what constitutes a threat to National security. Yes, country comes first, but that must not be the reason to cover up government scams and torturing people who themselves make up the country. Nowhere in the constitution is it mentioned that dissenting the acts of the government is unpatriotic. The government must remember that their power is derived from the people. India slipped 10 points to 51st rank out of 165 countries in the rankings of Economist Intelligence Unit(EIU) due to erosion of civil liberties in 2019 and retained its status as a "Flawed democracy". It is time for the government to be confident about themselves about their own integrity and restore the RTI act to its original form.