RIGHT TO INFORMATION A TOOL FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

Dr. Sweety Phogat

Right to Information, Democracy, Transparency and Good Governance.

The Right to Information Act is a vital tool for good governance. The Right to information Act is an important weapon to fight against corruption. Rule of law, equal participation, transparency, accountability and responsibility of public authorities are basic elements of good governance. The concept of good governance emerged mainly because practices of bad governance, characterized by corruption, unaccountable governments and lack of human rights. In our Indian Constitution we have a democratic form of government (Here the Government is of the people, by the people and for the people). No democratic government can survive without accountability and the basic postulate of accountability is that the people should have information about the functioning of the government. A good law is only the first step in ensuring transparency; citizens need to be informed and vigilant. Government needs to reengineer its processes to convert documents and data into intelligible and meaningful information. And then civil society and media should learn to use information as a powerful tool to enforce accountability and fight misgovernance. The good governance is nothing but a characteristic of the government system. The aim and object of the RTI Act is to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information under the control of public authorities. In recent years, there has been an almost unstoppable global trend towards recognition of the right to information by countries, intergovernmental organizations, civil societies and the people. The right to information has been recognized as a fundamental human right, which upholds the inherent dignity of all humans beings.

Volume 6 Issue 1, January-2018

Pages : 590-595