Dear Sir, 

Your government's approval of the Amendments to the RTI Act and lackadaisical attitude towards tacklig corruption, arguably the biggest malaise affecting our country, has left me in utter shock and dismay. I was proud and overjoyed as an Indian when the progressive RTI Act was passed last year.

The preamble of the RTI Act of 2005 reads ... Democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information which are vital to its functioning and also to contain corruption and to hold Governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed. The government's action to amendment the act by removing file notings from the purview of the act contravenes the essence of the act.

Without file notings the citizens will be uninformed of the decision making process and what the possible consequences of a particular decision could be before being faced with a fait accompli. Without file notings, it will be impossible for the citizenry to know “who did it” and hence will not be in a position to enforce accountability and consequently will be unable to contain corruption. Without file notings, the government processes will continued to be hidden under the veil of secrecy and thereby renders the act useless.

It is shameful that the government in the garb of removing ambiguities is actually creating a sheild for the corrupt officials in the administration. Finally, even if there were any areas that were found to have caused undue concern and put fundamental principles at stake, they could easily have been dealt with by the existing exemptions under Section 8 of the Act, or by adding a particular kind of information to Section 8. Barring file notings is not barring a kind of information — it is barring information itself. And this move is nothing short of subterfuge against the Act.

I demand that the government rethinks its action and withdraws the amendments to act and resolves to strength people's power by introducing more transparent mechanisms paving the way to a participatory democracy of an informed citizenry.