Rajya Sabha passes RTI (Amendment) Bill after acrimonious debate

New Delhi (India), July 25 (ANI) The Rajya Sabha on Thursday passed the controversial Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 after an acrimonious debate and opposition walk out amidst uproarious scenes with the government rejecting a strong demand for referring the bill to select committee and managing the support of parties outside the NDA fold.
The Bill was passed after rejecting several amendments and motions seeking to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. 117 members voted against the opposition motion while 75 members voted in its favour. The YSRCP, the BJD, the TRS voted with the government.
The Lok Sabha had earlier passed the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill that allows the Central government to notify the term of office for the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and Information Commissioners (ICs) with the Opposition slamming the measure as diluting the provisions of the legislation.
As the voting was going on, the House witnessed some unruly scenes as chaos erupted when former TDP and now a BJP member C M Ramesh allegedly went about with the ballots intended for the vote.
Soon after that the opposition members trooped near Chairman's podium and started sloganeering.
Before walking out of the House, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad accused the treasury benches of intimidating the opposition members
"Don't make the parliament a government department. They are killing democracy. We don't have any faith on this government," he said and then staged a walkout.
Earlier, responding to the debate, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Jitendra Singh clarified that the legislation was not intended to curtail the autonomy of RTI Act.
"I wish to assure the House that there is no interference as far as the independence of the RTI institution is concerned. There will be no such interference as concerns raised by some of the members," he said.
The Minister said in appointments of the state Information Commissioners, there will be no role of Centre and the Bill does not infringe upon the rights of the states.
"The provision of appointments will continue as envisaged in the Act," he said.
The Bill seeks to empower the Centre to make rules to decide the tenure, salary, allowances and other terms of service of Information Commissioners of the Central Information Commission and also of State Information Commissions.
When the House took up the Bill in the post-lunch session, it witnessed acrimonious scenes leading to four brief adjournments.
The Opposition parties including Congress, Left, Trinamool Congress, DMK, AAP and RJD demanded the government to refer the bill to the Select Committee for further scrutiny.
Members from the Congress, Trinamool, CPI and CPI-M moved amendments in this regard urging the government to send the bill to the Select Committee.
They created pandemonium after the government rejected their demand.
Congress' Anand said that the Bill needs to be presented before a Select Committee and motions in this regard have been moved.
"Rajya Sabha is not obliged to blindly endorse the Bill passed by the other house. If another House has not referred the Bill to a select committee...law-making is a serious business...house is not meant for government business only...other issues of public importance are there... law-making cannot be done in a hurry and every law affects this society," he said.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh alleged that government was bringing amendments in the Right to Information Act to take revenge with the institutions as it exposes the false claims of the government.
Participating in the debate, he also cited five reasons behind the government's move to "dilute" the Act.
He also raised questions on the timing of bringing the amendments to the Bill which mandates timely response to citizen requests for government information.
"The timing of the amendment is not so innocuous and innocent. There are five cases that have propelled the government to bring these amendments," he said noting five orders of Central Information Commissioner including on Prime Minister Modi's educational qualification.
BJP's Vinay Sahasrabuddhe said it is only related to the tenure and salary and the basic structure of the RTI Act has not been changed. Anil Desai of Shiv Sena also supported the Bill.
Congress's Abhishek Manu Singhvi alleged that the government was downgrading the status of information commissioners and said the bill has been brought to devalue the RTI Act. (ANI)