The Government has recently constituted a Special Task Force to ensure effective implementation of the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) and to bring in more transparency and accountability in governance.  The task force is mandated to seek ways for effective implementation of Section 4 of the RTI Act. 

In this regard, Infocracy India, an initiative to further democracy by access to ‘free, open and abundant’ information conducted a survey to check if law schools are adhering to the RTI Act and concluded that most of the law colleges are not complying with the law.

Section 4 of the RTI Act stipulates that every public authority shall catalogue, index & facilitate access to its records and ensure that online access to such information is facilitated (subject to availability of resources).

Also, every public authority is duty bound to proactively disclose the information provided under the heads mentioned under Section 4 (1)(b). This had to be published within 120 days of the date of enactment of this Act.

Some of the heads under section 4(1)(b) include:

“the procedure followed in the decision making process, including channels of supervision and accountability; 4(1)(b)(iii)

the monthly remuneration received by each of its officers and employee, including the system of compensation as provided in its regulations; 4(1)(b)(xi)

the names, designations and other particulars of the Public Information Officers etc; 4(1)(b)(xvi)”

Needless to say adherence to Section 4 is the first and the foremost step towards ensuring transparency and accountability in the functioning of any public authority. However, a country-wide dismal record on this front has goaded the government to constitute a special task force to ensure effective implementation of this Section, as reported by the Statesman.

Even our best law universities have a poor record on this. The Section 4 came into force on June 15, 2005 and the information should have been disclosed within 120 days, by October 15, 2005. It seems that we are six years late.

Here is the track record of our top National Law Universities, ILS Pune and GLC Mumbai.

NLSIU Bangalore, NALSAR Hyderabad, GNLU Gandhinagar and NLU Delhi have provided comprehensive Section 4 information on their respective websites.

NUJS Kolkata, NLU Jodhpur and RMLNLU Lucknow provide only the details of the Public Information Officer (PIO) and the Appellate Authority (AA). All other information mandated by section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act (usually in the form of a 50-100 page document) has not been published on the websites of these colleges.

NLIU Bhopal, ILS Pune, HNLU Raipur and GLC Mumbai are the biggest truants and have not even published details of the PIO and the AA. Any prospective information seeker wishing to assert her Right to Information in any of these universities won’t even know where to send her application too.

The Transparent Colleges

Interestingly, the “Transparent Colleges” not only provide the requisite information but also facilitate easy access to it. NALSAR’s website has a link to Right to Information on the bottom left of its home page while NLS has this information as a drop down menu on the “About” tab.

NLU Delhi’s website which has probably the best compiled Section 4 information has also provided for a simple access. A colour-flashing tab which says “RTI Act” can be found on its home page.

However, GNLU’s website with the tab name “Information Compendium” on its home page could do well by changing the description to “RTI Act” or something to that effect.

The Cloudy Colleges

Things get difficult with the “Cloudy” law colleges. See the steps involved to land onto the NLU Jodhpur’s information on its PIO and AA.

1. Go the “Profile” tab, click “Administration”
2. On the “Administration” tab, click “Public Information Officer”

The heads are vague, the steps too many and it is questionable whether a reasonable man will construe this as “access” to information.

Also note that NLU Jodhpur does not provide access to other information mandated by Section 4. NUJS Kolkata and RMLNLU Lucknow too are satisfied with only providing for the details of the PIO and the AA.

The opaque colleges

ILS Pune and GLC Mumbai are the biggest culprits. Right to Information seems to have skipped the attention of 2000 plus law students and teachers.

NLIU Bhopal and HNLU Raipur present interesting cases.

NLIU Bhopal: a visible head on the navigation bar of its website provides for “RTI”. However, it refuses to open.

HNLU Raipur: Clicking on the “Misc” tab will lead you to a drop down tab called “Downloads”. One of the downloadable documents is the “Public Information Officer Order”, dated April 1 2009 which speaks about the appointment of a PIO!

This reminds us that it is unknown if even the ‘Transparent’ colleges provide access to updated information or not.

Conclusion

This little research establishes what we provokingly blogged on March 13, 2011: Law universities have been at the forefront of the ‘institutional hypocrisy’, leaders of not practicing what they preach.

While legal aid camps are held with gusto, teaching the unaware and the uneducated about their rights; maybe it’s time to also see, how unaware, uneducated and unconcerned we are about ours.

Tanuj Kalia and Akshay Sharma are both students of NUJS Kolkata. Tanuj is the founder of Infocracy India (www.infocracyindia.org) , an initiative to increase RTI activism among law students in India. Akshay is a student researcher at Infocracy India (www.infocracyindia.org).