Parliament passes RTI (Amendment) Bill, 2019

Parliament has passed the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 with the Rajya Sabha approving it yesterday amid opposition walkout. The Lok Sabah has already passed the bill. 

The Bill seeks to empower the Centre to make rules to decide the tenure, salary, allowances and other terms of service of Information Commissioners of the Central Information Commission and also of State Information Commissions. 

Replying to debate on the bill, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Dr. Jitendra Singh clarified in the House that the legislation is not intended to curtail the autonomy of RTI Act. 

He said, the bill has been brought in a good faith and it will work towards and streamlining and institutionalising the RTI Act. He also clarified that powers of constitution and appointment of State Information Commissions have been left with States. 

He also rejected opposition demand of referring the bill to the Select Committee.

The House also negated the opposition parties' amendments regarding sending the bill to select committee. Earlier, the Upper House witnessed the unruly scene when the process of the division was underway. 

The Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad accused the ruling party of undermining the Parliament and objected to some Ministers’ and BJP members’ walking towards different party leaders to seek



their support. 

Later, protesting over it, the members from Congress, Left, TMC, DMK, RJD, AAP and others staged a walkout.

Earlier, participating in the debate, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe of BJP supported the bill saying it is only related to tenure and salary and the basic structure of the RTI Act has not been changed. Anil Desai of Shiv Sena also supported the Bill. Abhishek Manu Singhvi of Congress opposed the bill alleging that the government is downgrading the status of information commissioners. 

He said, the bill has been brought to devalue the RTI Act. Jawed Ali Khan of Samajwadi Party also opposed the bill saying that the government wants to destroy the essence of RTI Act. Some other members including Manoj Jha of RJD, Darek O Brien of TMC, Jairam Ramesh of Congress and Vijaysai Reddy of  YSR Congress also participated in the debate.

In the post-lunch session, when the House was taking up this bill, it witnessed four brief adjournments due to disruption by opposition parties. The Opposition parties including Congress, Left, TMC, DMK, AAP and RJD demanded the government to refer the bill to the Select Committee for further scrutiny. 

Deputy Chairman Harivansh rejected the demand to first discuss the amendments saying that there were conventions earlier too that the bill and amendments can be taken together.