WORKING OF RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT 2005: AN APPRAISAL IN THE EXISTING PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

The whole world is moving towards the information quotient and it is often said the present age is gradually leading the generation towards information society leaving intelligence, spiritual and knowledge based society. It is information, which has become the key to success in the present society. However, genuine attention on information was given for the first time in 1948, when Article 19 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, recognized the importance of information for human being in the way to their proper development and provided opportunity to get access to information, globally. Most of the civilized states have understood the importance of information in a democratic setup and adopted the right to information as a fundamental right to enjoy the right to freedom of information in its proper sense. India, being one of the largest democracy in the world, is not an exception to this global understanding. 'Right to Information' is the test of a conscious and vigilant society in a democratic government in any civilized society. It provides authority to its citizen to participate in the development process of the nation. India is not an exception to the general notion and it has accepted its legislation to rule the right to information in particular in the line of right guaranteed to its citizen by the Constitution of India through the doctrine of 'freedom of speech and expression'. India has its first obvious legislation 'Right to Information Act' in the year 2005, which for the first time extended the right to obtain information from any public authority subject to some classical exemption in the line of 'reasonable restriction' of the Constitution of India. The Right to Information Act, 2005, (RTI Act) has for the first time empowered the general citizen to take a call of the governmental and government-aided activities of the government in the country and through different provisions, the RTI Act, 2005 has allowed the citizen to become the watchdog for all governmental projects and activities by taking time to time information about the projects. Manifold scope to get singular information from the public authority has also made the law information friendly, in exception to the general understanding of administration friendly or information seeker friendly. Besides 'public information officer' and 'appellate authority’, the introduction of quasi-judicial body in the name of 'commission' in the form of state commissions and central commission has extended two dimensional redressal mechanism for the information seekers. Provision of 'fine' in the RTI Act has also worked as booming capsule in encouraging the application and increased proper respect towards the rights extended by the RTI Act. It has splendidly kept India economic structure in its spirit and made the information available at a very low cost for general people and free for the people of below poverty line. The present RTI law, for the first time, has provided a third eye to all the alert and aware citizen of India to participate in the process of maintaining administrative transparency and accountability. It has, nowadays, been proved, to be the key to 'Good Governance'.