Dear Sir,

As an Indian citizen, I am very distressed at the Cabinet decision to curtail our New-found Freedom in the Right To Information Act 22 of 2005.

The citizens of India had just enthusiastically started using this Act, and the numerous success stories coming from all corners of the country made me proud and hopeful that the malaise of corruption will finally be eliminated from my country. I believe that the immense empowerment of the Citizens which is possible through the implementation of this progressive Act (in its current form) will convert India into a true participatory democracy.

However, the recent Cabinet decision to disallow file-notings from disclosure under the RTI Act is a Citizen-unfriendly move and strikes at the roots of our Freedom.

I am listing the major objections that I have to this proposed change in the Act:

1. Putting file notings in the realm of exemptions will make the Act weaker. Without access to information about the people behind the decision-making process (which is possible ONLY through file-notings), instances, where higher officers and Ministers have over-ruled objections to illegal proposals by honest officers, will never come to light. The guilty and corrupt officials will therefore be protected forever under the garb of secrecy. What we have perceived as Right to Information is being sought to be converted to Right to Corruption. The significance of the proposed amendment to the Act coming soon after an All-India Anti-bribery Campaign using RTI is not lost on us.

2. The amendment, brought in without any consultative process  makes a mockery of over nine months (from August 2004 to May 2005) of a consultative-deliberative process between Bureaucrats, Ministers, a Parliamentary Committee and Citizens, by an arbitrary decision of the cabinet. This is in violation of the basic principles of transparency and democracy.

3. Further, the proposed language of the amendment excludes all file notings except for only the ones that are related to social and development issues. For even these in the exemptions the proposed amendment states that any file notings that are made before the executive decision are exempt. The language perhaps meant to suggest that until the executive decision is made, the file notings will be exempt but that is not what the proposed language actually means. This small mistake will have major implications.

4. The amendment dilutes the power of the CIC by keeping the final decision making power with the Government. This violates the promise of transparency and responsibility made by the government to its electorate.

5. Most of all I take strong objection to your press note, which states that the proposed amendment will strengthen the act. The note challenges the intelligence of every Indian citizen who can see through the language of the act and that the proposal actually weakens the act. As I see it, the the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions is in violation of law when it publishes mis-information on its FAQ that the act as it stands excludes file notings.

Sir, many of us living in USA are distressed by this move and worried about the future of business in the country and certainly are thinking twice about returning to India in a climate where our government takes ones step forward to come back a twenty the next moment.