On Sunday, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh wrote a letter to Union Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, asking him to “pause, review, and repeal” Section 44(3) of the Data Protection Act, 2023. He expressed concerns that this section could harm the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, by removing citizens’ right to access information on the same terms as their elected representatives.
His main worry centers on the change introduced by Section 44(3) of the Data Protection Act, which affects Section 8(1) of the RTI Act, 2005. Therefore, he pointed out that Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act was an important rule that allowed citizens to ask for information from government bodies and hold them accountable. He believes the change would hurt transparency in the government and weaken citizens’ ability to access important information. According to Jairam Ramesh, this would undermine the purpose of the RTI Act, which is designed to make public authorities more transparent and answerable to the people.
He also noted that Section 8(1)(6) of the RTI Act already had rules to protect privacy and prevent the sharing of personal information without permission. He believes that these protections were enough and that the new amendment was unnecessary and too strict.
The new amendment would replace Clause (j) of Section 8(1) of the RTI Act with a clause stating: “information which relates to personal information.” Jairam Ramesh argued that this change would take away much of the information that people could previously access under the RTI Act, especially information that isn’t related to personal privacy.
In his letter, Jairam Ramesh urged Minister Vaishnaw to reconsider the changes in Section 44(3) of the Data Protection Act, 2023. Unfortunately, he argued that this section would severely impact the RTI Act, 2005, and called for the government to review and repeal it to protect transparency, accountability, and the public’s right to access information.