A brazen assault on RTI

New Maharashtra rules will restrict transparency, promote corruption

Alok Tiwari

A consistent feature of governments under Narendra Modi-led BJP, whether at the Centre or in the states, has been their attempt to abridge the rights of citizens. Every new law or an amendment to an existing one, every framing of rules, every act has been towards decreasing the space of individuals and increasing power of the state. There is not a single instance where citizens now have greater protection against excesses of the state than before 2014. Be it the laws related to taxation, information technology, crime, or even food; there is less protection for citizens and more authority to the state. The state can be more intrusive and more coercive while citizens have fewer ways in which to preserve their personal liberties and freedoms.

And these are not just provisions enacted and kept in cold storage for use during emergencies. The governments have not been shy in using them, mostly to curb dissent and crush political opposition though the rationale offered while enacting them has always been loftier. Maharashtra has now added its own sorry chapter to this tale by implementing a series of measures designed to restrict the Right to Information (RTI). The new rules notified last fortnight significantly raised the fees for using RTI. This applies right from the first application which will now cost Rs 30 instead of Rs 10 before. Similarly, getting photocopies of documents will cost Rs 5 instead of Rs 2. Inspecting records will also be more expensive.

Though the amounts may appear small at first glance they will add up to a substantial sum for people who need to use RTI on a regular basis and intensively, for e.g. journalists, lawyers, social activists, etc. Merely raising fees, while still harsh, still had fig leaf of a justification as adjustment for inflation. But there are other more sinister changes that directly restrict access to information. The new rules restrict one application to one subject, impose a 150-word limit on applications, and require attaching a photo ID of the applicant with every query.

There was another provision requiring a public interest justification for seeking information. This directly contradicted the provision in RTI Act that expressly said citizens need not give any reason for seeking information. Whether the provision was inserted out of incompetence or arrogance is not clear, but knowing BJP it could be both. Faced with public backlash and possibility of legal challenge, government withdrew that part. Other rules remain intact.

Taken together these represent a brazen assault on RTI and will deter many from filing queries. This is not unexpected. RTI for long has been a thorn in the side of ministers and bureaucrats, and not just under BJP government. Under present government, state officials and ministers, including the ones having direct responsibility of implementing the act, have been publicly ranting about alleged misuse of the RTI Act. They have repeatedly and pointedly highlighted cases when some individuals filed RTI queries in bulk and then used them to blackmail officials. It is funny this should be a problem for a party that has turned blackmail and intimidation into a political art form. Seldom have these officials spoken about how empowering the act has been for common citizens in fighting corruption and injustice.

Even if so-called RTI activists are considered then a vast majority of them have been engaged in bringing out information that has highlighted corruption, wasteful expenditure, or inactivity of government bodies and officials. This is proved by the number of these activists threatened, attacked, or even killed by those whose deeds they were exposing. Civil rights groups put the number of murdered RTI activists at about 100 while more than twice that number have survived murderous attacks since the enactment of this law. Hundreds more have been threatened. About a dozen have ended their lives from harassment by corrupt public servants and mafias.

This is not to deny abuse of RTI law. Every law is prone to misuse and abuse. But abuse does not justify restricting the scope of RTI that has undoubtedly done more good than harm. What next? Will we ask victims of crimes to deposit a hefty fee with the police before registering an FIR just because some people file false complaints?

Noise is often made about habitual users of RTI. Most of us will go through our lives without needing to file a single RTI request. But there are people at the receiving end of injustice from government agencies and who need to file a lot of queries to gather material for their defence. Already officials do everything they can to stonewall such queries. Maharashtra’s new rules are huge gift to such corrupt officials.

Many RTI queries are filed by government servants suffering injustice in the matter of postings, promotions, transfers, benefits etc. They need information about other personnel who have been wrongly favoured by the administration and given privileges that are denied to others. Such people also need to file repeated pleas. Administration often refuses such information under the guise of it being personal. But information is necessary for the aggrieved official to build a case of injustice or discrimination. It is not clear whether the public interest justification that new rules require for this purpose has also been withdrawn. If not then, it needs to be.

For people fighting to right a public or personal wrong, the needed information is often voluminous. Making it expensive to get ensures that only the rich can exercise that right. This was never the intent of the RTI Act which sought to make information accessible to common citizens. Of course, it casts a burden on government offices to deal with such queries. The answer is to strengthen information infrastructure, digitize records, deploy technology make storage and dissemination easier and cheaper. Restricting applications only proves the government is against transparency and is trying to hide things.

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on June 25, 2026