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The Latest RTI Amendment And Everything You Need To Know

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Priyanka Parmar
New Update
RTI Amendment

The Right To Information (Amendment) Bill 2019 was passed in the Rajya Sabha on 22nd July. There's a lot that happened before, during and right after it happened. Here's all you need to know about the RTI Amendment...

The amendment will bring changes concerned with the salaries and tenures of Information Commissioners in the States and at the Centre. The amendment removes the provisions of the salary of the CIC and IC being equivalent to those of the CEC and election commissioners at central and state level along with the election commissioners and the chief secretary at the state level. According to it, these will now be determined by the government. One other change that has been made in opposition to the RTI Act of 2005 is that the Centre will notify the terms of both the CIC and the IC the which was earlier fixed for a period of five years.

The Opposition's motion to send the legislation to a Select Committee was overthrown with 75 votes against 117 in favour of the government. it isn't a common occurrence in the Rajya Sabha for The Opposition motion to be defeated and this didn't happen in the most civil way either.

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The commotion erupted when a member of The Opposition accused BJP MP and C.M. Ramesh (had recently switched to the BJP from the TDP) of interfering. He was called out for collecting the ballot papers from others, instead of letting the Marshals do it. In fact, The Opposition even staged a walkout during the process. It was in the absence of the Opposition that Mr. Harivansh announced the result of the ballot and the Bill was passed by a voice vote.

Congress MP and Deputy Leader of Opposition Anand Sharma spoke to The Hindu and said,

“What happened today is the ultimate insult to the dignity of the Rajya Sabha. The government has acted with the blatant disregard of the traditions and through this undermined the very sanctity of the vote. They may have managed the number but it’s a moral defeat.”

Here's how Twitterati reacted to it:

 

 

Politics #indianpolitics Amendment Rajya Sabha Rajya Sabha and The Opposition RTI RTI Amendment