Economic Survey’s return to secrecy undermines the Right to Information

By Venkatesh Nayak* 

The latest Economic Survey (ES) revives a 20-year-old idea of amending the Right to Information (RTI) Act to keep file notings, records of internal deliberations, and draft papers out of the citizenry’s reach. The UPA government had crafted an amendment proposal along similar lines in 2006 but could not muster enough political support to table it in Parliament. At the time, the NDA—particularly the BJP—was among the most vocal opponents of the move, alongside civil society groups.

It is therefore puzzling that the same idea has now been revived without producing a shred of evidence to show how often draft papers or internal deliberations have actually been disclosed under the RTI Act, or what tangible harm such disclosures have caused to governmental interests. Assertions of damage without data weaken the credibility of the proposal.

The idea of a ministerial veto over disclosure is also not new. Several Commonwealth countries—including the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and even Scotland—have such provisions in their freedom of information laws. However, these powers are used sparingly and, crucially, are subject to strict judicial review. The most well-known instance of judicial correction of an abuse of veto power is the eventual disclosure of correspondence between the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, and government departments. The Supreme Court of England and Wales overruled the ministerial veto, holding that ministers cannot overturn a decision of an FoI appellate tribunal merely because they disagree with it.

The Economic Survey is conspicuously silent on a critical question: when exactly would a ministerial veto be applied—before the Information Commission decides an appeal, or after the Commission has ordered disclosure? This ambiguity strikes at the heart of the transparency framework.

More fundamentally, the very idea of a ministerial veto runs counter to the people’s right to know, as articulated by Justice P. N. Bhagwati in the landmark S.P. Gupta vs President of India Constitution Bench judgment of 1983 (also known as the First Judges Case). Justice Bhagwati rejected the argument that protecting cabinet records and internal deliberations promotes candour among bureaucrats by shielding them from public scrutiny, calling such reasoning unsustainable in the modern era. Disclosure, he held, cannot be denied merely because it may embarrass the government or a department head; embarrassment is not a valid public interest argument.

The doctrine of Crown privilege, which once protected such secrecy, has long been replaced by the far more rigorous test of public interest immunity. The central question today is whether disclosure would harm a legitimate public interest. This principle is embedded in the RTI Act itself—particularly in Section 8(1), which lists specific exemptions, and Section 8(2), which provides a public interest override. Even where exemptions apply, the Information Commission retains the authority to order disclosure if larger public interest so demands.

The Economic Survey fails to engage with these well-established legal developments. Instead, it seeks to reopen debate on ideas and practices that have either been discarded or are now rarely used. The government, which is almost always an interested party in disputes over access to information, cannot be the final arbiter of what constitutes public interest—this role properly belongs to the judiciary or to an autonomous Information Commission.

Against this backdrop, it is a stark irony that the chapter, and indeed the Economic Survey itself, concludes with a reference to the late Mark Tully’s Ninth Palkhivala Memorial Lecture titled “India… must move from a Ruler’s Raj to a Citizen’s Raj.” This contradiction is emblematic of a broader pattern within the ES, which simultaneously invokes democratic ideals while advocating the transformation of India’s welfare state into an entrepreneurial state—one in which citizens are reduced to consumers of public services rather than equal stakeholders in the world’s largest democracy.

The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act has already amended the RTI Act in a retrograde manner by removing parity between citizens and their elected representatives—MPs and MLAs/MLCs—in terms of access to information. The Economic Survey now appears to initiate debate on even more regressive measures that would further constrict the transparency regime.

Strikingly, the Chief Economist who authored the ES seems to view the citizenry as an adversary of the State, rather than as the very reason for, and purpose of, the State’s continued existence.

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*Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi