E-Paper
Goa governor reverses decade-old stand on RTI, says will honour info requests
Goa governor PS Sreedharan Pilli, who brought his office under RTI Act, said: “People are supreme rather than the governor, chief minister, or opposition leader... They are not the boss of the people”.
PANAJI: Goa governor PS Sreedharan Pillai on Friday reversed a decade-old stand by Raj Bhavan that the gubernatorial office was not obliged to respond to information requests under the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005.
“I would like to publicly declare my policy that governors are bound to furnish information to the people and people are supreme,” Pillai said on Friday, deciding in favour of a legal case pursued by the Raj Bhavan for years after the Goa Information Commission and the Bombay high court at Goa held that the governor’s office was a public authority under the RTI Act.
Rashtrapati Bhavan, and Raj Bhavans in the rest of the country have mostly responded to information requests filed under the transparency law. Goa’s Raj Bhavan, however, insisted that the governor was a sovereign, not a public authority under the RTI Act, and no direction could be issued to the governor for disclosure of any information under the RTI Act.
Pillai, a practising criminal lawyer before he was appointed as Mizoram governor in 2019 and later transferred to Goa by President Ram Nath Kovind, clearly didn’t agree with his predecessors.
“I do not want to blame anybody, but hereafter RTI with respect to Raj Bhavan will be available for all the citizens,” said Pillai, who once led the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala.
“The basis of democracy is that people are supreme rather than the governor, chief minister, or opposition leader... all are expected to serve the people. They are not the boss of the people,” PS Sreedharan Pillai added.
The matter was first argued before the Goa Information Commission with the transparency watchdog ruling that it was indeed within the ambit of the RTI Act and would have to furnish information. The Bombay High Court at Goa too upheld the view after the Raj Bhavan filed an appeal. An appeal was then preferred before the Supreme Court where the matter is currently pending.
Adv Aires Rodrigues, who has pursued the matter for more than a decade said it was “great news.” “This will end the needless protracted litigation which is now pending before the Supreme Court after having commenced before our High Court. For over a decade the Goa Raj Bhavan has not been submitting itself to this Transparency law by strangely claiming that it is not a ‘Public Authority’ despite all other Raj Bhavans across the country and even the Rashtrapati Bhavan being under the purview of RTI Act which was enacted to ensure Transparency and Accountability in Governance,” Adv Rodrigues said.
“The move now by governor Pillai is most appropriate while sending a powerful message on the need for a citizen-centric approach of transparency, openness and accountability in governance. This would be in the best interests of the democratic principles and the Constitutional mandate of the RTI Act,” he added.
