Aruna Roy-led National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI ) on Tuesday launched an online campaign against plans to amend RTI Act to insulate political parties.
In the petition addressed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the activists said a series of attempts to amend the Act have been made periodically since 2006 but it has been nullified to a large extent due to public pressure.
The petition said there are reports about the government considering the introduction of a bill in Parliament to amend the RTI law as a reaction to the recent Central Information Commission order, which declared six political parties to be public authorities under the RTI Act.
“Such a move to amend the Act will reinforce and confirm the suspicions of many that the political establishment intends to cover acts of corruption and arbitrary use of power," the petition said.
It said India’s governance is going through a credibility crisis as never before, in which all sectors of governance and social formations have been suspect. The political establishment has come in for most severe criticism, just and unjust, it added.
“We, as citizens of India, empowered by the RTI Act, demand that it should not be amended. The Act has enabled the making of informed choices and strengthened participatory democracy; by enabling the citizens to monitor and access services throughout the country. Any amendment to the RTI Act would undermine and weaken the process of realising various constitutional promises," the petition said.
Last week, a group of eminent citizens, including former Delhi Chief Justice A P Shah and ex-CIC Shailesh Gandhi, have appealed to MPs not to vote for such a move in Parliament.