Activists filed 100 RTI applications across the country while police detained 66 campaigners on their way to petition the President to withhold assent to the Right to Information Amendment Bill, 2019, which gives the Centre control over the salaries and tenures of information commissioners.

Addressing reporters after their release, Anjali Bharadwaj of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information said the activists had been detained even though they were not shouting slogans. Their petition carried the endorsement of 127,000 citizens.

“The reason they don’t want us to speak or (have) discussions or public consultations, or the bill to go to a select or standing committee, (and the reason they haven’t) put the draft on a website is that they have information to hide,” RTI pioneer Nikhil Dey said.

“Maybe they can steamroller Parliament, but they can’t steamroller the people.”

Over the past two days, activists in several states have filed RTI applications questioning the government’s claims about the detection of fake ration cards through Aadhaar and seeking details of the Rafale deal, the hardware of the electronic voting machines, the statistical performance of the voter-verifiable paper audit trail devices, and the complaints against Supreme Court judges, among others.

An RTI plea has been filed to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s office demanding details of the location of the personal security officers who were not accompanying the Unnao gang-rape complainant when a truck collided with her car on Sunday.

“On the first of every month, in Delhi and the state capitals, we will share what these RTI pleas have obtained and review (the developments that have) happened to file more RTI applications,” Dey said.

The campaign is called “Use RTI to Save RTI” in English and “RTI lagao RTI bachao” in Hindi.

India’s first chief information commissioner, Wajahat Habibullah, said: “This amendment throws state information commissions into disarray as the Centre now takes over the powers of all of them although they are paid for by the consolidated funds of the states…. The government is riding roughshod over the basic rights of the people to participate and to know.”