Citizen Direct at India Together: July 2005 Archives

Only the Central Right to Information Law should continue and the State Acts must be scrapped

State and Central Acts must coexist

1. There are legal issues about whether both Acts can coexist.

Minister Pachouri in Parliament said that the Attorney General has opined that both Acts can coexist.

2. The national law is better than all State Acts, hence the State Acts are superfluous.

This is not an argument about which Act is better. The citizen will have a choice between the two for state government bodies.

3.All of us should work for a common all-India law.

We will work for a good national law, and get the flaws and weaknesses corrected. But if this takes some time, the momentum of RTI in the states already using state laws should not be lost.

4. It will be administratively difficult to have both laws. It will mean more expense.

Some administrative inconvenience, and expense is better than the citizen’s losing state RTI laws.