তথ্য অধিকার আইন

The Daily Star, Thursday, May 16, 2024

Shamsul Bari and Ruhi Naz

India’s right to information (RTI) regime has been going through a rough patch since the Bhartiya Janata party (BJP) government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in May 2014. RTI activists and informed citizens are concerned that the government is weakening the power of the law. One illustration of this is the delay in nominating information commissioners, leading to a huge backlog of requests. In August last year, opposition Indian National Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge accused the government of “killing the RTI Act bit by bit,” adding that it is “not just an attack on the constitutional right, but another step in the conspiracy to end democracy.”

Against this backdrop, the unanimous decision on February 15, 2024 of a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Indian Supreme Court, led by its chief justice, to strike down the now infamous Electoral Bonds Scheme of 2018 and order the disclosure of a huge amount of sensitive information hitherto concealed from citizens came as a shot in the arm of India’s RTI Act, 2005. In Bangladesh, there is much to learn about the enormous potential of our own RTI Act, 2009 from the Indian experience. Read more