Transparency and accountability institutions

The first principle

Power that cannot be seen cannot be questioned, and power that cannot be questioned will sooner or later be misused. Transparency makes the state visible; accountability makes it answerable, which means that someone must explain a decision and face a consequence if it was wrong. The two depend on each other, because information without a remedy produces only anger, and a remedy without information has nothing to act on. India's accountability institutions, from the Right to Information to the Lokpal and the social audit, are attempts to supply both.

The core

Kinds of accountability

• Political accountability runs from ministers to the legislature and from legislators to voters, through collective responsibility, questions, committees and elections.
• Administrative accountability runs up the hierarchy of the civil service, through rules of conduct, inspections, audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and vigilance.
• Legal accountability is enforced by courts and tribunals, which test whether an action was within the law and followed fair procedure.
• Social accountability is exercised by citizens and civil society directly, through social audits, citizen report cards, public hearings and the media.
• Horizontal and vertical. Horizontal accountability is one state institution checking another (Parliament, courts, CAG, Lokpal). Vertical accountability runs from citizens to the state, through elections and social action. Most failures in India lie in the vertical channel between elections, which is why the right to information matters.

The Right to Information Act, 2005

• Constitutional root. In State of Uttar Pradesh v Raj Narain (1975) the Supreme Court held that the people have a right to know every public act done by public functionaries. In S. P. Gupta v Union of India (1981) it read the right to know into freedom of expression under Article 19(1)(a) and said that disclosure should be the rule and secrecy the exception.
• Origins. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), working with labourers in Rajasthan in the 1990s, held public hearings (jan sunwais) where muster rolls and bills of local works were read aloud, exposing payments to workers who did not exist. Tamil Nadu and Goa passed state laws in 1997, several states followed, and the Freedom of Information Act, 2002 was passed but never brought into force. The RTI Act replaced it and came fully into force on 12 October 2005.
• Proactive disclosure. Section 4 requires every public authority to publish its functions, officers, budgets, rules and the reasons for its decisions without being asked, so that citizens need to file fewer requests.
• Time limits. A Public Information Officer (PIO) must reply within 30 days, or within 48 hours where the information concerns the life or liberty of a person.
• Exemptions and override. Section 8 exempts information that would harm sovereignty or security, Cabinet papers before a decision, and certain personal and commercial information. Section 8(2) allows disclosure even of exempt information if the public interest outweighs the harm, and most exemptions lapse after twenty years.
• Security organisations. Under Section 24, intelligence and security organisations listed in the Second Schedule are outside the Act, except for information on allegations of corruption and human rights violations.
• Commissions and penalties. The Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions hear second appeals and complaints, and can fine a PIO who refuses or delays without cause up to 25,000 rupees.

Dimensions

The 2019 amendment and the autonomy of commissions

• What changed. The original Act fixed a five year term (or up to the age of 65) for the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and Information Commissioners, and gave them salaries equal to the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners. The Right to Information (Amendment) Act, 2019 let the Union government prescribe term, salary and service conditions by rules, for both central and state commissioners, and the Rules of 2019 set the term at three years.
• The government's case. The Election Commission is a constitutional body under Article 324, while Information Commissions are statutory, so parity between them was an anomaly. Rules also allow flexibility without amending the Act.
• The critics' case. A commission whose term and pay depend on the government it must order to disclose information is less independent; a shorter term reduces the experience and confidence of commissioners; and extending the rule making power to state commissions weakens the federal design of the Act.
• Appointments. In Anjali Bhardwaj v Union of India (2019) the Supreme Court directed the Union and states to fill vacancies in information commissions in time, to make the selection process transparent, and to draw commissioners from varied fields rather than only retired civil servants. Vacancies and pending appeals remain the main practical weakness.
• Personal information. Section 44(3) of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 amended Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act to exempt personal information outright, removing the earlier qualification that it could be disclosed where the larger public interest justified it. Critics say this narrows the RTI, since records about the conduct of officials often contain personal information.

In practice

Anti corruption institutions

• Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). Set up in 1964 by a resolution on the recommendation of the Santhanam Committee, it was given statutory status by the CVC Act, 2003, after the Supreme Court directed it in Vineet Narain v Union of India (1997). It supervises vigilance in central bodies and the work of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in corruption cases.
• Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013. The Lokpal has a chairperson and up to eight members, half of them judicial, and its jurisdiction covers the Prime Minister (with safeguards), ministers, Members of Parliament and central officials. The first Lokpal was appointed in March 2019, and every state was required to set up a Lokayukta.
• Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018. It made giving a bribe a specific offence, made commercial organisations liable, and inserted Section 17A, which requires prior approval of the competent authority before any inquiry into a public servant's decisions taken in official functions. The aim is to protect honest decision making, but critics fear it can shield the corrupt.
• Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014. It protects people who disclose corruption in public bodies. An amendment Bill of 2015 sought to exclude matters covered by the Official Secrets Act, and the Act has not been brought into operation, so the 2004 government resolution under the CVC remains the working channel.

Social accountability

• Social audit. Section 17 of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005 required the gram sabha to audit all works in the panchayat, and rules of 2011 required states to create independent social audit units. Andhra Pradesh, which began statewide social audits in 2006, set up an independent social audit society in 2009, and its model was followed by other states.
• Meghalaya Community Participation and Public Services Social Audit Act, 2017 was the first state law to make social audit of public services and schemes a statutory requirement across departments.
• Citizen report cards. The Public Affairs Centre, Bengaluru, pioneered the method in the 1990s by surveying users of city services and publishing their ratings. The method turned scattered complaints into evidence that agencies could not ignore, and has since been used by governments and the World Bank.

Issues and way forward

• Weak compliance with Section 4. Most requests seek information that should have been disclosed already. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC), in its first report, Right to Information: Master Key to Good Governance (2006), recommended that the Official Secrets Act, 1923 be repealed and that a public records office be created in every authority; regular audits of proactive disclosure would cut requests sharply.
• Backlogs and vacancies. Commissions without full strength take months to hear appeals. Time bound appointments as directed in Anjali Bhardwaj, and online hearings, are the remedy.
• Threats to users. RTI activists have been attacked and killed. Bringing the Whistle Blowers Protection Act into force, with confidentiality of identity, would protect them.
• A Lokpal that depends on others. The Lokpal relies largely on government agencies to investigate the very officials it oversees. Fully staffed inquiry and prosecution wings of its own, as the 2013 Act provides, would make it independent in practice.
• Ethics in governance. The Second ARC's fourth report, Ethics in Governance (2007), recommended codes of ethics for ministers, legislators and civil servants, confiscation of property acquired by corruption, and constitutional status for Lokayuktas. Codes, not only penalties, shape everyday conduct.

Common confusions

• Transparency and accountability. RTI gives information, but the consequence must come from another body (a court, the CVC, the Lokpal, the voters). An answered request is not yet accountability.
• Lokpal and CVC. The Lokpal inquires into complaints of corruption against public servants including ministers and can order investigation and prosecution; the CVC supervises vigilance within the administration, and under the 2013 Act the Lokpal may send complaints against Group A and B officers to the CVC for preliminary inquiry.
• Information Commission and Election Commission. The first is statutory, created by the RTI Act; the second is constitutional, under Article 324. This is why Parliament could change the service conditions of Information Commissioners by ordinary law.
• Social audit and CAG audit. CAG audit is done by experts, checks legality and value for money, and reports to the legislature; social audit is done by the people who were meant to benefit and checks whether the work exists on the ground.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: horizontal and vertical accountability, social accountability, right to know, proactive disclosure, public interest override, Information Commission, RTI (Amendment) Act 2019, Anjali Bhardwaj, Lokpal, Vineet Narain, Section 17A, whistle blower, social audit, citizen report card, Official Secrets Act.
• Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction with data: "The 2019 amendment cut the fixed five year term of Information Commissioners to whatever the Union government prescribes, which its rules set at three years."
  • Introduction with a judgement: "In S. P. Gupta (1981) the Supreme Court held that disclosure must be the rule and secrecy the exception, a principle the RTI Act turned into a working right."
  • Conclusion: "The independence of Information Commissions is the test of the RTI Act, because a right to know is only as strong as the body that enforces it."
  • Conclusion: "Transparency laws, anti corruption bodies and social audits work best together: one shows what happened, one punishes wrongdoing, and the third lets citizens check the state between elections."