NEW DELHI: Launching a scathing attack on the ‘Economic Survey’ that called for re-examining the Right to Information Act (RTI), Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday asked whether it was RTI’s turn to get murdered after the UPA era rural job scheme MGNREGA.
Accusing the Union government of systematically weakening the RTI Act, Kharge said it is unleashing a climate of terror that punishes truth-seekers, as he pointed out that over 100 RTI activists had been murdered since 2014.
The Economic Survey tabled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman on Thursday said that the RTI Act 2005 was never intended as a tool for idle curiosity, nor as a mechanism to micro-manage the government from the outside. It also made its case for re-examining the nearly two-decade-old RTI law to exempt confidential reports and draft comments from disclosures, saying such provisions constrain governance. Kharge noted that the Survey also suggested a possible ‘Ministerial veto’ to withhold information and wants to explore the possibility of shielding public service records, transfers, and staff reports of bureaucrats from public scrutiny.
“The Economic Survey has called for ‘re-examination’ of the Right to Information Act. “The Modi Government has systematically weakened the RTI Act — Over 26,000 pending cases as of 2025. In 2019, the Modi Government hacked away at the RTI Act, seizing control over Information Commissioners’ tenure and pay, converting independent watchdogs into submissive functionaries,” Kharge said in an X post.
He said the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, gutted the RTI’s public interest clause, “weaponising privacy to shield corruption and stonewall scrutiny.”
Until last month, the Central Information Commission had been functioning without a chief information commissioner. It was the seventh time in 11 years that this key post was deliberately kept vacant, the Congress chief claimed.
“Since 2014, over 100 RTI activists have been murdered, unleashing a climate of terror that punishes truth-seekers and extinguishes dissent. The WhistleBlowers Protection Act, 2014, passed by the Congress-UPA has not been implemented by the BJP, to date,”he said.
‘Ministerial veto’ a possibility now, claims Kharge
The Congress chief noted that the Economic Survey also suggested a possible ‘Ministerial veto’ to withhold information and wants to explore the possibility of shielding public service records, transfers, and staff reports of bureaucrats from public scrutiny.