Various citizen groups and civic society leaders have expressed disappointment at the attempted amendment to limit file notings from RTI disclosures.

On Wednesday, the PMO had issued an elaborate explanation, stating this was not a case of retrogression, but a positive step. But, Aruna Roy, former NAC member and leading activist in the Right to Information crusade, has hit out at the government saying the PMO’s claims were “deliberately misleading”. Roy argues that while the government is now saying that allowing access to file notings, even if restricted to those files which have social and developmental plans, is a landmark step, it is actually a curtailment of what the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) of India had interpreted ‘‘information’’ to mean, as early as January 31 this year.

Various civic society leaders have already resigned from various advisory committees that the government had set up. Aruna Roy has resigned from the National Advisory Committee while Dr Sandeep Pandey sent in his resignation to the Central Edvisory Committee on Education.

Bureaucrats argue that disclosing file notings will prevent policy makers from freely making notes and should not be disclosed. However, civic society leaders argue that the reasons for making decisions are as important as the decision itself. Corruption or biases in decisions will be apparent in these notings. In the absence of disclosure of these notings, it will be a lame bill.

The Right to Information bill is a landmark bill in India since it gives to the citizens of India access to all public processes. In a democracy, transparency of processes is necessary and hence this was an important step. File notings were an important part of the demands of the various civic society movements that worked on formulating and advocating this bill from the very beginning.

Times of India reports that file notings are now accessible under the existing provisions of the Right to Information Act thanks to a decision of the RTI regulator, Central Information Commission, in January ruling that, subject to restrictions, “a citizen has the right to seek information contained in file notings.”

Though there is no express provision on file notings, the CIC ordered their disclosure on the basis of a “combined reading” of the provisions of the RTI Act, which provided “access to a file of which the file notings are an integral part.”

Given the manner in which records are kept by authorities, the CIC said “no file would be complete without note sheets having file notings.” Holding that “file notings are not, as a matter of law, exempt from disclosure,” the CIC said that if Parliament intended to do so, it would have specifically excluded file notings while defining “file” or “record” in the RTI Act.

The recently proposed amendment is thus driven by the bureaucracy to limit disclosures of file notings by arguing that they could be disclosed only on “development and social issues.”

To Petition the government to ensure disclosure of file notings and not bring in a constraining amendment, please click here.