The Opaque Nation

CONTEXT: Recent steps taken by the Government and judiciary have raised questions about transparency in the governance structure, which is a cornerstone in the Democracy.

Recent steps taken and issues associated:

• Electoral Bonds: Introduced in 2017, they allowed for anonymous donations to political parties and protected the privacy of donors.

• Election Commission of India has criticised these bonds as being opaque and retrograde step.

• Political parties are now allowed to accept foreign funding and government companies which was earlier prohibited under section 29B of Representation of People Act,1951.
• Earlier cap on private companies to donate up to 7.5% of the average net profit in three preceding years.

• Sealed Envelopes: Supreme Court and various government institutions have recently opted for sealed envelopes in several instances.

• Supreme court directed political parties to submit details of political funding in sealed Envelope to the Election Commission of India (ECI).

• Assam government submitting a progress report in a sealed envelope to the supreme court.

• Dismissal of sexual harassment case against Ex-CJI Ranjan Gogoi, based on report received in sealed covers.

• Commenting on such development, Justice Madan Latur wrote ‘Secrecy is the name of the game’.

• RTI: Right to Information was introduced to make India progress in transparency.
• Appointment: Government did not appoint Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioner in 2014 and between 2016-18 respectively.
• The Supreme Court directed in 2019 to fill in all the vacant seats; four seats are still vacant.
• Vacancy has led to pending of 30,000 cases at the central information commission, rendering it defunct.
• Shrinking purview of RTI: Previously available information such as phone tapping is not being made available under RTI. Rejection rate for RTI query by Finance Ministry and RBI along with Public sector bank is 15% and 33% respectively.
• Amendment to RTI Act: Fixed five-year tenure and salary on par with election commission was amended in 2019. Now tenure and salary are to be notified by the Government.
• Dilution of Whistle Blower’s Protection Act: 
• Now whistleblower can be prosecuted for possessing documents on which complaint has been made;
• Conditions imposed such as issues flagged should be of public importance, not affecting the sovereignty and integrity of the nation, not related to commercial confidence and not the information passed in confidence by foreign Government.
• Flaws in Statistical Collection: National Statistical Commission and Chief Statistician of India faced a credibility crisis when new GDP series was released.
• Open letter by 108 social scientists inviting the Government to re-establish institutional independence and integrity of statistical organisations.
• Delay and deletion in National Crime Records Bureau report, such as ’religious killing’ and lynching are no longer included in the 2017 report which was released in 2019.
• National Sample Survey Office’s 75th round survey on consumer expenditure was not released, which later indicated that increase in people living below the poverty line between 2011-12 to 2017-18.

Conclusion: To conceal the truth would be harmful since economic actor would not be in a position to address the challenges. Transparency is not only necessary for Democracy but also for making the economy work.