HC to examine CBI’s exemption from RTI ambit

A month after the Centre approved CBI’s request to exempt it from the purview of the Right to Information Act, the Delhi High Court is set to examine its validity.

A month after the Centre approved CBI’s request to exempt it from the purview of the Right to Information Act, the Delhi High Court is set to examine its validity.

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Sitab Ali Chaudhary, a lawyer, has filed a PIL, making the Centre, the home and law ministries, CBI and National Investigating Agency answerable to the petition. A bench headed by chief justice Dipak Misra will hear the PIL on July 6.

The PIL said the RTI Act only gives exemption to organisations dealing with defence, security and national intelligence issues and that the CBI nowhere came within its ambit.

The Cabinet had earlier this month approved CBI’s request to be exempted from the RTI Act. The move had attracted widespread condemnation from activists and civil society representatives.

In a similar PIL, the Madras High Court has already, on June 25, asked both the Centre and the CBI to explain this exemption. Petitioner and RTI activist S Vijayalakshmi had contended that since the expose of Commonwealth Games and other scams and the Lokpal movement, the Centre has become “jittery and rudderless” in the war on corruption.