Click to play videoNew Delhi: It's been one year since the Right to Information came into force with an ambitious intention of empowering the common man. But has it served the purpose it intended to?
The answer is yes and no.
When the Central Information Commission was set up a year ago, giving RTI a stable launch pad, there were reasonable expectations and apprehensions.
However, one year on, the truth remains that RTI is being both used and misused.
While there have been some heartwarming cases of the Right being put to good use, there have been several raging controversies as well.
The most serious row pertained to the question of whether file notings should be disclosed.
Another troubling trend has been the use of RTI as a national pastime.
Sources have told CNN-IBN that a startling 50 per cent of RTI applications are petty and frivolous, seeking highly personalised and unnecessary details of their colleagues’ birth or school certificates and information on whether their counterparts, subordinates and even bosses are filing their Income Tax returns.
CIC has taken note of the fact that the act is being used to settle personal scores. “There is a need to have greater general awareness. This is not a grievance redressal act or an anti corruption act," says Chief Information Commissioner, Wajahat Habibullah.
Over the past year, the CIC has received over 3,300 applications, of which 1,606 have been disposed off and nearly an equal number is pending, making the disposal rate around 50 pe rcent. Habibullah is hopeful the number would go up in the years to come.
“With the soon-to-be-introduced system of video conferencing, the disposal rate will go up," he says.
So what is the future of RTI - an act which was meant to empower the citizens of the country but now being increasingly used for vested interests?
'Bright', says the CIC, but hastens to add that increased awareness as to what kind of information should really be sought, would be helpful.
"I would like to see it as a good beginning. As a flying start? No. But certainly a good beginning," Habibullah says.
Bolstered by a few landmark judgements, the Information Commission does, and deservingly at that, see the glass as half full.
But in an age when the public yearns for more, the CIC surely has it's task cut out for future.
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