All of us have gathered here to-day to deliberate on the Orissa Draft Bill on Right to Information, which is going to be enacted soon in the Orissa Legislative Assembly. The Resolution on the consensus that would emerge out our discussions would be sent to the Government for consideration at their end for effecting appropriate changes in the Draft Bill before it is presented to the Assembly for discussion.
Before I call upon the eminent speakers to throw on the subject , I feel it necessary to speak a few words on the background of to-day's topic.
As you know, whenever an Act is passed in a Central or State legislature, it has to have the sanction of the constitutional mandate, without which no Act can come into existence.
The proposed Orissa Right to Information is no doubt a progressive Act. But what is its constitutional mandate? Which articles of the Constitution provide the State legislature to go for enactment of such a law? This is basically based on the Article 19 .1 ( a) of the Constitution- Freedom of Speech and Expression. As you know, there are two types of legislations we are having in our country; one is the Acts made by the legislature Central or State, and the other is made by the judiciary. In respect of the second, let me tell you, if there be no legislation on a particular subject, or the existing legislation is deficient in certain matters, the Judiciary may take out the hidden part and elaborate it into a legislation.
I would say that the Right to Information is no more a hidden chapter. The Right to Information has come to light in the Judgment of Supreme Court under AIR 1995/1236. It was a case between the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting versus Cricket Association of West Bengal. In that Judgment, the Supreme Court ruled that the freedom of speech and expression included the right to receive and disseminate information. So the concept of Right to Information is not a new one. It is very much there as Judgment made into a law. Subsequently different States made separate Acts on RTI. And we are going to deliberate on how it can be enacted in Orissa, as in some other States.
Debashis and Mrinal ( of CHRI, New Delhi) told, the concept has to reach to the public. So I do think that the very Act on Right to Information should contain a provision, by which it can reach to the people, who include villagers and downtrodden people.
We the citizens have a fundamental duty. The concept of Fundamental Duty came into the Constitution vide Article 51A through the Forty Second Amendment of the Constitution in the year 1976. If every citizen abide by his or her fundamental duties, there won't be probably a situation to demand the Right to Information to be made into a law. The Fundamental Duty, it is envisaged, would work as a catalyst for every citizen to know the fundamental rights of his own and of others.
Let me tell you one more thing, i.e. Article 19 (2) of the Constitution. This Article came as the First Amendment to the Constitution in 1951. It says that there have to be some reasonable restrictions. In the Evidence Act, there is restriction on the access to the privileged communication of the Government. If you make every thing free, then there would be endless problems. Let alone the big questions like security of the State, even one should not know what is happening between husband and wife. So what is to be kept as a total secret should not be allowed to be made public. And that is the intention of the Article 19 (2) of the Constitution. Just sometime back Mr.Abhishek Roy read out the Report of National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution. What I gathered from there, Justice Venkatchalia recommended amendment to Article 19 (2) of the Constitution. We welcome such amendments, which are progressive in nature. But 'progressive' does not mean that we make the entire system topsy-turvy. There has to be a limit. Otherwise we can't proceed. When the founding fathers framed the Constitution in 1950, they contemplated a progressive society, but didn't foresee at all that the level of the public would go down so drastically. We have to strike a balance between the two.
Keeping this much-needed balance in view, we need to discuss, how the proposed Right to Information law is going top benefit the public.