The Ambit of Public Authorities under the Right to Information Act, 2005
The French Philosopher Michel Foucault said that power is knowledge and knowledge comes from information. The RTI act is a tool to empower citizens. It was enacted in 2005 to promote accountability and transparency, and reduce Corruption. The Act empowers citizens to ask for information from the public authorities. Section 2(h) of the Act defines public authority. The paper tries to analyze the definition in section 2(h) with the help of judicial pronouncements. Then the author attempts to do a comparative study on the RTI laws concerning the ambit of public authorities. The laws in Asian countries like China and Nepal are compared with the Indian laws on information spread. Lastly, the paper critically analyses the lacuna in the law and how the ambit of public authorities still needs to grow.
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