Resurrecting the Right To Know

Context: The recent bold and progressive decision taken by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) to release the High-Level Committee report (constituted to define Assamese People), has resurrected citizens right to know.

Judicial Evolution of the Right to Know:

• Direct Emanation for the Right to Information: 

• In the State of U.P. v. Raj Narain (1975), segregated those documents which require protection even though their contents may not be damaging to the national interest.
• For E.g. Cabinet papers, foreign office despatches, papers regarding the security of the state and high-level interdepartmental minutes. 

• Pragmatic View Reserved:  The Court held that the citizens have a right to know every public act, everything that is done in a public way by their public functionaries.

• A Shift from Need to Right: In S.P. Gupta vs President Of India (1981) case, the court emphasised more on the right of the citizen to know than on his ‘need to know’ the contents of official documents.
• Win over Official Secrets Act (OSA), 1923: The court declined the violation of OSA in light of public interest.

• In Yashwant Sinha v. Central Bureau of Investigation (2019): The Supreme Court held that there is no provision by which the Parliament has vested powers in the government to restrain the publication of the document marked as secret. 
• Justice K.M. Joseph referred to Section 8(2) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 which provides that a citizen can get a certified copy of a document even if the matter pertains to security or relationship with a foreign nation if a case is made out. 
• The right to know can be curtailed only in limited circumstances and if there is an overriding public interest.

Way Forward:

• Tackle Secrecy with Transparency: As secrecy tends to encourage oppression, corruption, abuse of authority without any public accountability.
• Governments must encourage the citizen’s right to know and be more transparent in the public interest, as long as the security of the country is not jeopardised.