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Goa Archbishop not a public authority under RTI Act: Bombay high court
The high court order came on a petition by the Goa Archbishop that challenged the commission’s directive in 2014 to release information sought by a resident
PANAJI: The Bombay high court at Goa on Thursday set aside an order by the Goa State Information Commission that held the Archbishop Patriarch Of Goa, Daman & Diu was a “public authority” under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The high court order came on a petition by the Goa Archbishop that challenged the commission’s directive to release information sought by a resident, Antonia Abel, such as copies of the appointment letters of the Archbishops of Goa and Bombay, accreditation letters sent by the Vatican and permission to inspect the marriage annulment registers.
Abel sought the information on the ground that under the Portuguese civil code applicable in Goa, orders and judgements passed by the Patriarchal Tribunal (church courts dealing with marriages and divorces) have civil recognition.
“The act of giving recognition to the decisions and judgments of the Ecclesiastical Courts and Tribunals like the Patriarchal Tribunal is not the same thing as establishing or constituting the Ecclesiastical Courts or Tribunals like the Patriarchal Tribunal,” the high court bench of justice MS Sonak said.
“Similarly, the Canon Law or the Canonical Law cannot be regarded as the law made by the Parliament of India or the law made by the State Legislature. Merely because some of the decisions and judgments of the Ecclesiastical Courts and Tribunals constituted under the Canon Law may have acquired limited recognition under the State Law or the Parliamentary Law, that by itself would not be sufficient to hold that such Ecclesiastical Courts or Tribunals like the Patriarchal Tribunal are authorities or bodies established or constituted by a law made by the Parliament or the State Legislature,” the high court also said.
The Goa Information Commission had ruled that the Archbishop, whether acting as a
Patriarchal Tribunal or otherwise, was a public authority under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act because “his authority comes from the Pope at Vatican as ratified by the government through above decree (of the Portuguese civil code), according to which, the Portuguese Government had a Treaty with the Holy See (Vatican) under which the canonical marriage were solemnized by the Archbishop”.
The high court said this reasoning could not be accepted and the information commission “should have examined whether the petitioner, when acting in his capacity as a Patriarchal Tribunal, could be held to be an authority or body established or constituted by a law made by the Parliament or the State Legislature”.
“The impugned order is set aside, and it is held that the petitioner is not a “public authority” as defined under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act,” the high court said.
