Recently, the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 has
been passed by both the houses Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha which
seeks to amend Sections 13, 16 and 27 of Right to Information Act,
2005, which received huge hue and cry both in the houses as well as
from the general public. The amendments propose that the central
government will prescribe the term of office, and the salaries,
allowances and other terms and conditions of service of information
commissioners (both central and state). This amendment is being
seen as regressive in nature as it would lead to unaccountable
power to the government because the amendments will undermine the
independence of information commissioners which will ultimately
reduce to an agency of the government rather than an independent
organization. In a country where arbitrary use of power by
government has become order of the day, the legislation like RTI
Act, 2005 has been instrumental in empowering public to control the
arbitrariness
