Right To Information And Media - Indian Perspective

Ms. Bhushita Sharma & Ms. Rishika Maheshwari, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law and Media, Asian Law College, Noida

ABSTRACT

As Lord Acton said- “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” clearly suffices the agenda behind enactment of Right to Information Act 2000 which was later repealed by 2005 Act. In a nation wedded to democracy and republic, it is necessary to have transparency in the affairs of public administration. By the virtue of Official Secret Act,1923 the government authoritatively denied to release the information and termed it as “confidential”. This discretionary exercise of power by the various governments lead to a nation wherein extraction of relevant information became bare minimal. and there was an evident shift from the “transparency be the general rule and confidentiality be the exception” to “confidentiality be the general rule and transparency be the exception”. Keeping in mind this paradigm shift, the importance of fourth pillar of democracy i.e. “Media” arose as it acts as source of information to society, actively bridges the gap between the citizen of the country and the government. By informing, educating, mediating and disseminating the information which ought to be disclosed in public domain, it plays vital role of a catalyst. Through educating public at large on social, economic and political issues, RTI equips media with meaningful participation in society as it mandates the authorities to perform their task effectively while carrying a sense of responsibility and accountability with them. This paper intends to highlight the role of RTI in providing indispensable freedom to all the media institutions in order to serve the nation with required authentic data and how media maintains a balance between society and government through dissemination of information at public platforms. The purpose is to throw light on the alliance between two instruments- RTI and media as they both give voice to the people of India via informed decisions and policy making. The various aspects of dissemination of information as well restrictions to be kept in mind are hereby dealt and an attempt is made to establish how they can strengthen the nation.