Government’s Role in Enacting the RTI Act, 2005

The Right to Information Act of 2005 did not appear overnight. Behind this landmark law lies a decade-long tug of war between a hesitant government, a persistent civil society, and a series of committees that slowly stitched together the legal fabric of transparency. While grassroots movements and activists are rightly celebrated for igniting the demand, the government’s role in drafting, debating, and finally enacting the legislation is an equally important part of the story. It is a tale of multiple drafts, weak first attempts, political shifts, and eventual commitment to a transformative law.

The early governmental response to a growing demand 🔗

By the mid-1990s, the demand for transparency in governance had become impossible to ignore. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) had already turned the right to information into a rallying cry in rural Rajasthan, and the National Campaign on People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), formed in 1996, was actively lobbying for a national law. The government, faced with this sustained pressure, began to engage with the idea seriously.

One of the earliest formal contributions came from the Press Council of India. Under the chairmanship of Justice P. B. Sawant, the Council drafted a model law on freedom of information. This draft was later revised and renamed the PCI-NIRD Freedom of Information Bill, 1997, after a workshop jointly organised with the National Institute of Rural Development. Although it never became law, it served as an influential reference point for future drafts and signalled that the conversation had moved from the streets to policy corridors.

The Shourie Committee and the first official draft 🔗

In 1997, the Central Government under the United Front coalition set up a working group to prepare draft legislation on freedom of information. This group was chaired by H. D. Shourie, a well-known consumer rights activist, and came to be popularly known as the Shourie Committee. Its mandate was specific: to produce a workable draft bill that the government could consider for enactment.

The committee worked efficiently and submitted its report along with a draft law the same year. The draft was circulated at the Conference of Chief Ministers on 25 May 1997, where there was broad acceptance of the need for a freedom of information law. However, the draft also attracted criticism from civil society for not setting a sufficiently high standard of disclosure. Activists argued that the exemptions were too broad and the enforcement mechanisms too weak to make the right meaningful in practice.

Why the Shourie draft stalled 🔗

Despite being a considered effort, the Shourie Committee’s draft law never made it to Parliament. It passed through two successive governments, gathering dust rather than legislative momentum. Political transitions, bureaucratic reluctance, and the absence of a strong political champion meant that the draft remained precisely that, a draft. A small but notable episode occurred in 1999, when the then Union Minister for Urban Development, Ram Jethmalani, issued an administrative order permitting citizens to inspect files in his ministry. The Cabinet Secretary, however, did not permit this order to take effect, underscoring how entrenched the culture of secrecy was within the administrative machinery.

The Freedom of Information Act, 2002: A well-intentioned but weak beginning 🔗

The Shourie Committee’s draft was eventually reworked and introduced in Parliament as the Freedom of Information Bill, 2000. The bill was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, which consulted civil society groups and submitted its report in July 2001. The committee recommended that the government address the shortcomings highlighted during consultations, but these recommendations were largely ignored.

The bill was passed by Parliament in December 2002 and received presidential assent in January 2003 as the Freedom of Information Act, 2002. However, in a striking turn of events, the Act was never notified and therefore never came into operation.

Why the 2002 Act was considered inadequate 🔗

Civil society activists and legal scholars pointed out several weaknesses that made the 2002 Act little more than a paper promise. These included broad exemptions that went beyond national security and sovereignty, no upper ceiling on fees, and the absence of penalties for officials who failed to provide information. Even the grounds for refusal were vague, allowing phrases like disruption of the public authority’s capital to be used as convenient shields. Without penalties for non-compliance and without an independent appellate body, the Act simply could not deliver on its stated purpose. It is unsurprising, then, that the government itself appeared reluctant to notify it.

A political shift: The UPA and the Common Minimum Programme 🔗

The year 2004 marked a turning point. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA), led by the Indian National Congress, came to power at the Centre in May 2004. Right to information had been part of the Congress Party’s election manifesto, and once in government, the UPA translated that promise into policy through its National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP). The NCMP explicitly stated that the Right to Information Act would be made more progressive, participatory and meaningful.

This was more than a symbolic commitment. It gave civil society a concrete lever to push the government towards replacing the weak 2002 Act with a stronger, more enforceable law. The NCMP also created the institutional space for a new advisory mechanism to translate rhetoric into draft legislation.

The National Advisory Council: The drafting engine 🔗

To oversee the implementation of the Common Minimum Programme, the UPA set up the National Advisory Council (NAC) in June 2004, chaired by Sonia Gandhi. The NAC brought together civil society actors, academics, former bureaucrats, and social activists such as Aruna Roy and Jean Drèze. It was unusual in composition, as most of its members were drawn from outside the party framework, which allowed it to engage directly with activists and grassroots organisations.

The NAC took an active interest in RTI from its very first meeting on 17 July 2004. NCPRI submitted a statement calling for urgent action, and civil society organisations like the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative submitted detailed analyses of the existing 2002 Act along with suggested amendments. In August 2004, NCPRI forwarded a full draft bill to the NAC, which endorsed it with minor changes and recommended it to the Prime Minister.

From amendment to a brand-new law 🔗

An interesting detail often missed in popular accounts is that the original plan was to amend the Freedom of Information Act, 2002, rather than enact a completely new law. There was even an attempt to simply re-notify the 2002 Act, which faced sharp protests from citizens and civil society. Reluctance among bureaucrats and some politicians to accept NAC’s recommendations slowed the process, but sustained pressure from activists tilted the balance. Eventually, the decision was taken to scrap the 2002 Act and introduce a fresh, more comprehensive piece of legislation.

On 23 December 2004, the government tabled the Right to Information Bill, 2004 in the Lok Sabha. However, the bill initially applied only to the Union Government, which drew criticism for excluding state governments where citizens most frequently interact with the administration. It was referred to a Parliamentary Standing Committee chaired by E. M. Sudarsana Natchiappan, which again consulted civil society and recommended significant expansions.

Passage of the RTI Act, 2005 🔗

The Standing Committee’s recommendations were substantial. It proposed extending the Act to state governments, tightening the definition of information, reducing exemptions, and strengthening the penalty and appellate framework. A Group of Ministers chaired by Pranab Mukherjee then examined these recommendations. The final bill, substantially reshaped, was tabled as the RTI Amendment Bill 2005.

What followed was remarkable by parliamentary standards. The bill passed the Lok Sabha on 11 May 2005 and the Rajya Sabha on 12 May 2005, with broad bipartisan support. President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam gave his assent on 15 June 2005, and the Act formally came into force on 12 October 2005 after a 120-day preparatory period for central and state governments to set up the necessary machinery.

What the final Act delivered 🔗

The RTI Act, 2005 addressed nearly every weakness of its predecessor. It extended to both central and state governments, provided a clear 30-day response timeline (48 hours in matters involving life and liberty), created Information Commissions at the central and state levels as independent appellate bodies, and imposed penalties on officials for wilful denial of information. Crucially, Section 22 gave the Act overriding effect over inconsistent legislation, including the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, 1923, which had long been the biggest legal obstacle to transparency.

The significance of the government’s role 🔗

Looking back, the government’s contribution to the RTI Act is often underappreciated because of the strong narrative around civil society activism. Yet without the institutional mechanisms, political will, and drafting expertise of successive governments, the movement could not have produced a functional law. The Shourie Committee provided the first official draft. The Freedom of Information Act, 2002, although flawed, forced the conversation forward. The UPA’s Common Minimum Programme made RTI a political priority. The National Advisory Council created a bridge between civil society demands and legislative drafting. And Parliament, in its final act, passed a law that has since empowered millions of citizens.

This journey also illustrates an important lesson in public administration. Transformative legislation rarely emerges from a single moment of political will. It is built through iterations, negotiations between the state and society, and the slow recognition that transparency is not a threat to governance but its foundation.

What do you think? Do you believe the RTI Act, 2005 would have been as robust without the unusual arrangement of the National Advisory Council, which sat between civil society and the government? And looking at the current state of transparency in public administration, do you think the Act still delivers on the promise its drafters set out to fulfil?

References

1. https://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/content/national-level-rti
2. https://iasexamportal.com/courses/gs-concepts/indian-polity/right-information
3. https://www.ijmra.us/books/pdf/Right_Book.pdf
4. https://libguides.brown.edu/nac
5. https://grokipedia.com/page/Right_to_Information_Act,_2005
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Information_Act,_2005