Right to Information is a major step forward to

Concept. A transparency statute is judged by the democratic end it serves. The Preamble of the Right to Information Act, 2005 records that democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information, which are vital to its functioning, to contain corruption and to hold Governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed. The forward step such a law marks therefore lies in what it allows citizens to do within governance, not in the publicity, curiosity or goodwill it may incidentally produce.

Application. The stem asks what advance the Act itself represents. Section 3 vests the right to information in every citizen; Section 6 lets any citizen request that information from a public authority; Section 4 obliges every public authority to publish key categories of material on its own motion. Together these alter the citizen’s standing: the record on which an official decision rests becomes reachable — subject to the exemptions in Sections 8 and 9, which for instance withhold Cabinet papers until the decision is taken and the matter is complete or over — so the citizen can question that record, comment on it and press for a different outcome instead of only receiving the outcome. That change in standing is participation in the decision-making process.

Contrast. Each of the other completions names something the Act touches, but not the advance the Act represents:

• Awareness of the Act — Section 26 does require the appropriate Government to run educational programmes, but publicity is a means of implementing the right; a statute cannot exist chiefly to advertise its own existence.

• Knowledge of administration — inspection of work, documents and records under Section 2(j) is the mechanism the Act supplies; information gathered and kept to oneself stops short of the democratic purpose the Preamble names.

• Making people Government friendly — the duties the Act creates run from the public authority towards the citizen, in the direction of accountability; cultivating goodwill towards Government is not among its stated objects.

Result. The major step forward that the Right to Information marks is that it enables citizens to participate fully in the decision-making process.