Letter to the Prime Minister to oppose the proposed amendments to the RTI Act

To, Shri Manmohan Singh Prime Minister Government of India

Dear Mr. Prime Minister, Indias governance is going through a credibility crisis as never before, in which all sectors of governance and social formations have been suspect. The political establishment has come in for most severe criticism, just and unjust. Perhaps the only real argument for the credibility of the government continues to be the enactment and implementation of the RTI Act. It has been an entitlement which has kept the intent of a free and open system of governance afloat. The multiple uses of the Act to improve government functioning are so many that they defy enumeration. The use of the RTI is therefore seen as the one stated intent of the government to lay itself open to scrutiny, and therefore accountability. The series of attempts to amend the Act, which have arisen periodically, have since 2006 been nullified to a large extent by public pressure as well as the political will of a part of the establishment and government. It is reported that the Government is considering the introduction of a bill in Parliament to amend the RTI law, as a sharp reaction to the recent Central Information Commission order, which declared six political parties to be public authorities under the RTI Act. Such a move to amend the Act will reinforce and confirm the suspicions of many that the political establishment intends to cover acts of corruption and arbitrary use of power. We, as citizens of India, empowered by the RTI Act, demand that it not be amended. The Act has enabled the making of informed choices and strengthened participatory democracy; by enabling the citizens of India to monitor and access services throughout the country. Any amendment to the RTI Act would undermine and weaken the process of realizing various constitutional promises. In 2009, when amendments were being proposed to the RTI Act, the concerned minister of the government had assured Parliament, in response to a question, that Non- Governmental Organisations and Social activists will be consulted on

the proposed amendments. We would, therefore, expect the government to hold wide ranging public discussions before they think of amending the law in any way.

We are confident that the government will recognise the force of our demand and not take steps to amend and thereby dilute the Right to Information law, which has been acknowledged in India and abroad, as an affirmation of the right of Indian citizens to participate in, and monitor, democratic governance. Yours sincerely,
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. Aruna Roy Shailesh Gandhi Harsh Mander Shekhar Singh Bharat Dogra Anjali Bhardwaj Nikhil Dey Venkatesh Nayak Bhaskar Prabhu Rakesh Dubbudu Joy Kumar Sheikh Ghulam Abha Bhaiya Achyut Das Aditya Mukherjee Admiral L Ramdas Admiral R H Tahiliani Agnes Kharshiing Aheli Chowdhury Ajay Mahajan Akhila Sivadas Alankrita Isha Mrigakshi Amar Kanwar Amit Bahaduri Amita Baviskar Amitabh Behar Amman Madan Amrita Johri Anand Patwardan Anandalakshmy Anil Bhosekar Anil Galgali

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77.

Anil Gupta Anil Sadgopal Anita Prasad Anjoile Menon Antara Dave Anuradha Mitra Chenoy Arjun Verma Arun Kumar Aruna Rodrigues Ashish Kothari Ashish Ranjan Ashok Bhardwaj Ashok Khosla B.K. Ratnakar Rao Babi Dey Babloo Loiotngbam Babu Mathew Balbir singh Baldev Oberoi Bela Bhatia Bhai Balbir Singh Bhanumathi Sharma Bhanwar Meghvanshi Bhartendra Baswan Bina Agarwal Biswajit Mohanty Brig (Retired) S B Joshi Brig CS Kamboj Brig Khushwant Saini Brigadier S.D.Salokhe Brigadier V Mahalingam (Retired) Brij Kishore C. Prakash Capt RS Tathgur Cheriyan Kuruvilla Chitrangada Choudhury Col Diwakar Col Mohan Col.Srikantha Seshadri Colin Gonsalves Commodore Lokesh Batra CS Khandelwal D.L. Tripathi D.S.Ranga Rao Deep Joshi

78. Devaki Jain 79. Devasahayam MG 80. Dhananjayan V.P. 81. Dharmendra Kumar 82. Dhirendra Singh 83. Dinesh Mohan 84. Dipa Sinha 85. Diwan Singh 86. Dunu Roy 87. Faisal khan 88. Flavia Agnes 89. G R Vora 90. Ganga Das 91. George Mathew 92. Gowrishankar Ramarao 93. Gurcharan Das 94. H. D. Pillai 95. Hari Dev Goyal, 96. Harish 97. Hasanul Banna 98. Himanshu Thakkar 99. Himanshu Thakur 100. I.C. Srivastava 101. J K Bajaj 102. J. Banerjee 103. Jagdeep Chhokar 104. Jatin Das 105. Jayanti Banerjee 106. Jayati Ghosh 107. Jean Dreze 108. John Dayal 109. Jyoti Kelkar 110. Jyotsna Brar 111. K. R. Venugopal 112. K.B.Saxena 113. Kamal Jaswal 114. Kamal Mitra Chenoy 115. Kamayani Keki 116. Kamini Jaiswal 117. Kamla Bhasin 118. Kanak Dikshit 119. Kanak Singh 120. Kapil bajaj 121. Karamvir Shastri 122. Kartar Singh

123. Kashinath Anadure (Retd) 124. Kavita Srivastava 125. Kiran Shaheen 126. Kishan Lal Sharma 127. KPC Rao 128. Kuldip Nayar 129. L M Mehta 130. Lakshmi Pranesh 131. Lalit Mathur 132. Lalit Mehta 133. Lalita Ramdas 134. Lata Mani 135. Lata Mani 136. Lionel Reuben 137. Lt Col M K Sharma 138. M Cherian Kuniumon 139. M. G. Nadkarni 140. M. S. Swaminathan 141. M.B. Pranesh 142. M.K.Sridhar 143. Madhu Bhaduri 144. Madhu Sudan Sharma 145. Mahabir Singh Kasana 146. Mahendra Nadkarni 147. Mahendra Verma 148. Mahesh Bhatt 149. Maj Gen. Ganga Prasad 150. Maja Daruwala 151. Major (Retd) P. M. Goswami 152. Mallika Sarabhai 153. Manavalan 154. Manish Mehta 155. Mario Pinto Almeida 156. Maya Caroli 157. Medha Patkar 158. Meher Engineer 159. Mira Tahiliani 160. Mirai Chetterjee 161. Mohammed Afzal 162. Mohanty Gupta 163. Moni Malhotra 164. Mridula Mukherjee 165. Mrinal Pande 166. Mukesh Trivedi 167. N.Gopalaswami

168. Nachiket Udupa 169. Nalinaksha Mutsuddi 170. Nandini Sundar 171. Nandita Das 172. Narayan Verma 173. Narendra Sisodia 174. Naushad Panjwani 175. Nayak & Kishnadwala 176. Neerja Sharma 177. Nishat Hussein 178. Nitya Ramakrishnan 179. O.N.Vaid 180. Omprakash Saxena 181. Onkar Goraya 182. Onvaid 183. P palanikumar 184. P. V. Rajagopal 185. Pamela Philipose 186. Pankti Jog 187. Parminder 188. Parshuram Ray 189. Pradeep Kakkar 190. Prashant Bhushan 191. Prashanto Sen 192. Pravin Chandra Sharma 193. Prem Krishan Sharma 194. Premila Nazareth 195. Pushkar Raj 196. R. L. Narayan 197. Radha Friedman 198. Radhakant Saxena 199. Radm B Bose I N 200. Raja Bunch 201. Rajan Mahan 202. Rajeev 203. Rajendra Bhanawat 204. Rajiv Sisaudia 205. Rajni Bakshi 206. Rajvir Rohilla 207. Ram Prasad Kumawat 208. Ramaswamy Iyer 209. Ramchandra Malude 210. Ramesh R 211. Ravi Budhiraja 212. Ravindra Gupta

213. Rohini Hensman 214. Rolly Shivhare 215. Romi Chopra 216. S. Chakravarthy 217. S. N. Shukla 218. S. Regunathan 219. S.R.Hiremath 220. Sahil Sen 221. Saikat Ghosh 222. Sajal Srivastava 223. Sandeep Chachra 224. Sandeep Joshi 225. Sandeep Pandey 226. Sateesh Kuthiala 227. Satendra Bhagat 228. Sejal Dand 229. Shabnam Hasmi 230. Shantha Sinha 231. Shanti Kakkar 232. Shanti Verma 233. Sharda Jain 234. Shariq Contractor 235. Shiv K. Tripathi 236. Shomie Das 237. Shumita Ghosh 238. Siddharth Basu 239. Smita Godrej Crishna 240. Soli J. Sorabjee 241. Somnath Mukherji 242. Srilatha Subrahmanian 243. Srinivasa Natarajan 244. Stalin K 245. Sudhir Vombatkere 246. Suhas Borker 247. Sujata Suri 248. Sujogya Mishra 249. Sukumar Muralidharan 250. Suman Sahai 251. Sumi Krishna 252. Sumit Chakravartty 253. Sumita Mehta 254. Surendra Nath 255. Sushil Tripathi 256. T Ramachandra Bhat 257. T.K.Das

258. Tanpat Pannu 259. Taru Dalmia 260. Tarun Bhartiya 261. Tarun Das 262. Tarun Tejpal 263. Tavishi Alagh 264. Teesta Setalvad 265. Thomas Kocherry 266. Trilochan Shastry 267. Tripurari Sharma 268. TSR Subramanian 269. Uma Chakravarti 270. Usha Rai 271. V L Narayan 272. V. Saighal 273. Vandana Shiva 274. Ved Marwah 275. Venkata Rao 276. ViharDurve 277. Vijay Oberoi 278. Vijay Pratap 279. Vinod 280. Vinod Mehta 281. Vinod Mittal 282. Vinod Saighal 283. Vipul Mudgal 284. Vrinda Grover 285. Vsingh Rajput 286. Yamini Aiyar 287. Yogendra Narain