MUMBAI, INDIA – In August 2023, President Narendra Modi‘s government enacted a law that critics say will make India’s much-lauded Right to Facts Act all but irrelevant. The law, which amends the act by blocking public access to information deemed “personal data,” is expected to come into force any day now.
In April, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told Parliament that the law, called the Digital Data Protection Act, strengthens the privacy rights of individuals, but critics paint a bleaker picture of the law’s potential effects.
Journalists, activists, lawyers and academics frequently use the Right to Information act of 2005 to access information for the public good. About 6 million RTI applications are filed every year, the highest rate of public information requests in the world.
Between 2009 and 2011, for example, social activists, writers and public intellectuals filed many Right to Information requests, seeking the names of what are called willful loan defaulters.In the years leading up to the 2008 global recession, Indian banks loaned millions of dollars to corporations and individuals who, when the crisis hit, turned out to be willful defaulters.
The average Indian’s earnings and savings were at stake. No one knew who had defaulted on how much – or the toll it would take on the economy.
But the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank and regulatory body for the Indian banking system, denied the information requests, saying the data sought came from “confidential regulatory activities.”
In 2015, after years of battles in various high courts and the Supreme Court, the highest court ruled that the Reserve Bank should come clean. Indians needed to know were their money was and how stable the banks were.The public benefit outweighed confidentiality concerns, the court ruled.
Account-holders who had saved smaller amounts, retirees who had deposited their entire life savings in their banks and government employees who had their pensions coming to their bank accounts were relieved. Thanks to a crusade led by chartered accountant Jayantilal N. Mistry, the government says it has reduced the defaults by more than 75%.
“Such a fight is going to be impossible in the future,” says Anjali Bharadwaj, co-convenor of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information. “Our research has shown that a majority of [RTI] applications are filed by the marginalized, who are being denied their basic rights.”
The sunshine law
For years, Indians held public village meetings, drafted petitions in lower courts, held countless discussions in cities and marched to demand a law that recognized citizens’ right to information.
In 2005, the RTI codified this right and empowered citizens to scrutinize government functions, prevent corruption and ensure good governance, says Justice Ajit Prakash Shah, former chairman of the Law Commission of India. It was called the “sunshine law,” and it promised to shine a light on the darkness of secrecy.
The RTI included types of information, such as information which would threaten state security, that could be lawfully withheld.One such provision was the unwarranted invasion of the privacy of a person with no public relevance.
“What is crucial to understand is that the RTI, notably Section 8(1)(j), meticulously balanced the public’s right to know with an individual’s right to privacy,” says Apar Gupta, lawyer and fou