There comes a time when one wonders why our honourable courts allow inordinate delays in saying the obvious when it comes to such vital issues as the rights of citizens, the tenets of democracy and the Constitution of India’s clear requirements. We can point out to the political environment as an excuse, but that does not hold water really.
In an inexplicably delayed but significant verdict the Apex Court has strengthened transparency in political funding. On February 15th, it unanimously struck down the controversial Electoral Bond scheme. The judgment declared the scheme “unconstitutional,” arguing that its anonymity provisions violated fundamental rights around access to information and free expression that are vital to a democracy’s health.
Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, heading the five-judge Constitution Bench, asserted that while secret ballots maintain fair elections, political donations should not be afforded the same opacity as individual votes. The court acknowledged concerns over black money in politics but contended the Electoral Bond solution enabled excessive secrecy detrimental to public trust in governance.
This ruling marks a major victory for government accountability and levelling the playing field for political parties. The elimination of anonymity forces parties to disclose their funding sources, giving voters the information they need to evaluate influences on platforms and leadership. While the need for solutions to address illicit money in campaigns persists, the verdict reinforces the crucial role of transparency in maintaining a fair and inclusive democracy. It helps India strengthen electoral funding regulations, protecting against doubts of illegitimacy, conflicts of interest, and corporate influence that can undermine public trust.
The unanimous rejection of secrecy mechanisms around donations signifies the dawn of a new era strengthening civil liberties protections, checking unbridled party power, and upholding ideals of participatory self-governance free from opacity’s corrosion of institutional legitimacy. India’s democracy emerges as more transparent, accountable and justice-oriented.
The scheme was challenged by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Congress leader Jaya Thakur, and activist Spandan Biswal.
The bench, headed by the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, and comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra, delivered two separate and unanimous verdicts on the pleas challenging the scheme.
The activists had filed the case based on information gathered under the Right to Information Act. So what is this Act’s history?
Let us be clear. India is not the only country that has an enabling law of this kind. There are many more. Here are some countries that have laws similar to India’s RTI Act for transparency in governance and how it has impacted governance there:
1. United Kingdom—The UK’s Freedom of Information Act came into force in 2000. It has enabled public access to information held by public authorities to promote transparency. There is evidence that the FOI Act has improved citizen participation, accountability, trust as well assisted media investigations to expose scandals, malpractices across governance levels.
2. United States—The 1966 Freedom of Information Act legally obligated federal agencies to provide government records to the public upon request. Several expert analyses correlate FOIA with a significant decline in corruption over 25 years, leading to improved efficiency in welfare, healthcare and other citizen-services alongside increasing public trust.
3. Mexico—Mexico’s Federal Transparency and Access to Public Government Information Law enacted in 2002 is considered a pioneering legislation internationally. Civil society organisations leveraged the law for evidence-based citizen monitoring of government performance. Researchers have quantified improvements in governance quality over a decade across states which underwent transparency-driven participation.
4. Bangladesh—The Right to Information Act enacted in Bangladesh in 2009 followed the Indian legislation closely to empower citizens and civil society to reduce corruption, remedy gaps in services, expose human rights violations, improve law enforcement and ensure transparent use of funds for poverty alleviation. Targeted advocacy campaigns have unlocked high-impact small gains across rural regions.
The common patterns across jurisdictions indicate that operationalising laws which codify citizens’ right to access information about government functioning significantly bolster accountability, public debate, efficiency, analytical monitoring and participation. This cascades into widespread incremental improvements in reaching development goals through better performing public systems. There is evidence that RTI laws, when comprehensively enforced and adopted in the true spirit of transparency, can transform governance quality across levels.
The Right To Information (RTI) Act, 2005, was a landmark legislation passed in India that strengthened democracy, transparency, and accountability in governance. It empowered Indian citizens to seek information from public authorities, thus promoting transparency and tackling corruption. However, over the years, successive governments have attempted to dilute the RTI Act through amendments.
The Right To Information (Amendment) Bill, 2006, was one such controversial amendment bill introduced during the Congress-led UPA government. This bill proposed to exclude file notings of public authorities from the definition of information under the RTI Act, except for those related to social and development projects. File notings often contain important considerations, opinions, and decision-making rationale of government functionaries that citizens have the right to access. Excluding file notings would have thus diluted the transparency enabled by the RTI Act.
The 2006 amendment bill also aimed to remove the power of the Central Information Commission (CIC) to decide on complaints against its own decisions. This would have seriously undermined the independence and authority of the CIC, which acts as a watchdog empowered to safeguard citizens’ right to information. The CIC also has powers to direct public authorities to disclose information if it concludes that they have violated provisions of the RTI Act. Thus, the 2006 amendment bill provoked vehement opposition from civil society activists, RTI activists and transparency advocates who contended that it violates the spirit of the landmark RTI Act.
After much public outcry and opposition, the Right To Information (Amendment) Bill, 2006, was eventually withdrawn by the government in 2009 in the face of vociferous protests. However, in 2019, the Modi government introduced another controversial RTI Amendment bill that also faced criticism as an attempt to undermine the RTI Act.
The Right To Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 amended the RTI Act to give the central government greater powers over the tenure, salary, allowances and terms of service of Information Commissioners at both central and state levels. For instance, it removed the provision that required their salary and tenure protections to be on par with Election Commissioners. This dilution of safeguards for RTI watchdogs was perceived by critics as a ploy to erode the independence of Information Commissions and increase government control over them.
The 2019 Amendment Bill also faced opposition from activists who moved the Supreme Court, challenging its legality and conformity with constitutional principles. They contended that information commissions need functional autonomy and insulation from government interference in order to effectively carry out their mandate of upholding citizens’ right to information. The case remains sub-judice in the Apex Court, which is yet to deliver its verdict on the constitutional validity of the 2019 RTI Amendment Act.
Thus, over the years, through controversial amendment bills, successive central governments have attempted to erode the autonomy of information commissions, exclude information from the ambit of the RTI Act and dilute statutory safeguards meant to empower these transparency watchdogs. Such regressive actions have provoked public outcry and legal challenges from civil society that views them as threats to one of the country’s most revolutionary transparency laws—the RTI Act of 2005.
The RTI Act has been praised globally as one of the most empowering legislations, enhancing transparency, promoting good governance and enabling citizens to hold public authorities accountable. Over the fifteen years since the Act was passed, ordinary citizens have accessed information about government functioning that was hitherto inaccessible. Such information has exposed monumental corruption scandals, human rights violations, environmental dangers and systemic governance failures—strengthening democratic principles of transparency and accountability. Activists have successfully used the RTI Act as an anti-corruption tool to improve governance delivery systems spanning public distribution systems, MNREGA, healthcare, education and various other schemes.
As per government estimates, over 6 million RTI applications are filed in India annually. Information commissions continue to direct timely and proper disclosure of information sought by applicants. The Act has thus ushered in more transparency regarding government policies, decisions and performance across sectors and schemes. It has shifted power from the opaque corridors of power towards citizens through their legally enforceable right to question public authorities, access official information and thus take part in informed policymaking.
Considering these profound advancements in democratic governance achieved via the RTI Act, civil society perceives recent amendments as regressive steps that will disempower ordinary citizens while making the government less answerable. Any dilution of statutory safeguards for information commissions or attempts to restrict the ambit of ‘information’ under the RTI Act is therefore vociferously challenged. It could signal declining government commitment towards transparency when much more needs to be done to tackle pervasive corruption by making governance truly open. Unless the government introspects and reverses its attempts to erode RTI, it risks disenfranchising millions who have found their voice through this Act. The hard-won RTI law remains a primary tool of empowerment that must be protected to deepen India’s democracy.
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