Rahul Gandhi: Oppose RTI Amendment Bill in Monsoon Session

With the Monsoon Session  of Parliament continues for the second successive day on Thursday and key Bills are likely to be passed, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has urged all the parliamentarians to oppose the RTI Amendment Bill. Gandhi had accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of hiding the truth to the Indians and said that this new amendment will make RTI useless.

Sharing his views on Twitter, he wrote, “Every Indian has the right to know the truth. The BJP believes the truth must be hidden from the people and they must not question people in power. The changes proposed to the RTI will make it a useless Act. They must be opposed by every Indian. #SaveRTI.”

Every Indian has the right to know the truth. The BJP believes the truth must be hidden from the people and they must not question people in power. The changes proposed to the RTI will make it a useless Act. They must be opposed by every Indian. #SaveRTI pic.twitter.com/4mjBTwQnYK

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 19, 2018

In the tweet, Gandhi also posted a scan copy of the file in which the details of the new amendment were briefed. According to the document shared, in the old RTI Act, “salaries, allowances and other terms of service of the chief of the Central Information Commission are the same as the Chief Election Commissioner. The Chief and other election commissioners are paid a salary equal to the salary of a judge of the Supreme Court, which is decided by the Parliament. Further, the RTI act provides a fixed tenure of 5 years for information commissioners (subjected to age limit of 65 years).”

It further adds, “The status of the information commissioners was extensively discussed during the formation of the law, including by the Standing Committee. The Committee’s recommendation to elevate the status of the information commissioners was accepted and passed by the Parliament. Therefor the rationale put forth to amend the RTI act is completely fallacious.”

“It is inexplicable that instead of addressing these issues (Whistleblowers Protection Act), the government’s sole focus appears to be to weaken the RTI act. We urge political parties and Members of Parliament to strongly oppose this regressive move of the government to amend Right to Information Act,” it said.

With the new amendment that the NDA led government is trying to pass, more power would be with the Centre on the decision of remuneration to be paid. If it is passed, the government would be the sole authority to decide what should be the salary of senior government officials. Among other bills in controversy include the ‘Triple Talaq Bill‘.