Sanjeev Sanyal and Jayasimha KR
A fundamental requirement for a functioning state is that citizens are aware of laws, rules and procedures that they are expected to follow. This is why the ignorance of law is not accepted as a defence. This is based, in turn, on the assumption that citizens can easily find the relevant laws and rules. Alas, no easy task in India.
As an illustration, let’s look at something as simple as traffic rules in the national capital. As any reader can try out themselves, it is not easy to find out the traffic rules and penalties for different violations on the Delhi Police website. Worse, when we did find a document on the official website, it was actually misleading!
An undated list provided on the ‘Traffic Offences and Penalties’ page on Delhi Traffic Police’s official website has a list of 73 traffic offenses and corresponding penalties. According to it, there is no penalty for some of the serious traffic offenses in Delhi. For instance, penalties for “jumping red light”, “drunken driving”, “driving against authorised flow”, “dangerous goods by common carrier” and “driving dangerously” are zero rupees!! Please look up the link yourself (an image is attached as the website will hopefully be updated after this article). We have nothing specifically against Delhi Police but merely want to highlight the paucity of basic information on the most commonly applied of rules.
The case for easy and updated access to laws is not new. The Supreme Court (SC) has repeatedly reiterated the need for easy access to laws and rules since establishment of our Republic. In Harla v. The State of Rajasthan (1951), the SC had held that natural justice required that before a law became operative it must be promulgated or published “in some recognisable way so that all men may know what it is”.
Despite rapid technological advancement and expansion of digital public infrastructure, we are still bereft of one comprehensive and updated online platform to access all the laws and rules we are expected to follow. Though laws are published in various gazettes of the government, they are not in a format that is easily accessible to the general public. Even when available, one has to hunt through a long list of amendments and updates.
One existing initiative to solve this issue is the India Code portal. The portal is supposed to contain all the Acts, subordinate legislation, rules, regulations, notifications, orders, circulars, ordinances and statutes issued under a particular act. Though a commendable effort, the portal falls short of expectations as it is not regularly updated with accompanying documents and states’ amendments to central Acts. Central Motor Vehicles Rules is a case in point. The latest rules under the said Act available on India Code is the Central Motor Vehicles (Eighteenth Amendment) Rules of 2017 but not the twenty-sixth amendment rules (2021) under the Act.
Other countries have used digital platforms to solve the problem. A good example of a one-stop source for all the laws and rules is the UK’sLegislation.gov.uk. The website is the official home for all legislation and their accompanying documents enacted in the UK dating as far back as 1267 (including Magna Carta) to present. It also includes statutory instruments and local Acts where citizens can scroll through the changes made over time, including the latest available version, original as enacted, and all the corresponding amendments.
To end this asymmetry of information, the Economic Survey 2016-17 had suggested a Transparency of Rules Act (TORA). The proposed legislation would make it mandatory for all the ministries and departments to publish and update, in real-time, all the citizen-facing laws, rules, regulations, procedures, exemptions and other essential requirements on their respective websites as well as a portal like India Code.
TORA is not just about making portals like India Code function effectively. It is also about giving it a legislative teeth by enforcing the following elements:
All rules, regulations, procedures, exemptions, forms and other essential requirements would be accessible on the department website and the unified portal. Importantly, once a department or agency was declared TORA compliant, officials would not be allowed to impose laws/rules that are not explicitly published on the designated website. Demanding compliance to an unpublished rule would attract disciplinary action.
Laws, rules and regulations placed on websites and the portal would be presented as an updated unified whole and not as a series of endless circulars. The portal and websites would clearly mention the date and time each change is made with a clear time-stamp. This will help citizens know from which point in time the rule came into existence and discourage post facto uploading of information by officials.
In our view, TORA will be a significant value addition to the Digital India Mission which aims to achieve digital access, enhance ease of living and reduce the distance between government and citizens.
(Authours are respectively, member, and consultant, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM). Views are personal.)