Sanskriti school comes under the RTI Act : CIC

In Delhi, the first private school to come under RTI scrutiny is Sanskriti School, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Jan 26, 2007, 20:26:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In what could open up a pandora box of RTI applications in private educational institutions, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has termed schools receiving grants from the government as "public authority" under the RTI Act. This means that citizens can seek information from these schools as from any other government organisation as per regulations of the Act.

In Delhi, the first private school to come under RTI scrutiny is Sanskriti School. On Tuesday, information commissioner OP Kejriwal rejected the school’s contention that it was not a ‘public authority’. The school’s plea was rejected on two grounds - first that it received grants from the Central government and second that wife of the Cabinet Secretary is ex-officio chairperson of the Board of Management of the school.

The verdict was delivered on the application of Manju S Kumar, who had filed an RTI application with the school principal in July 2006. She had sought information about the contributions received from government departments and NGOs since the school’s inception. She also wanted to know about admission given to class IX students during March 15 2006 and July 2006 and the children of class VII who have taken transfer certificate during the period. Kumar had asked for details of the job of parents of all children studying in the school.

The application was rejected at the onset itself, as the school termed itself as a private school run by the wives of Civil Services Officers and was not a public authority as defined under the RTI Act.

Kumar did not agree and filed an appeal with CIC in August stating that Sanskriti School has received huge government contributions for developing the infrastructure like purchase of land and construction of buildings. Even to the commission’s show cause notice, the principal reiterated that the school was a not a public authority as it was registered under the societies Act.

Thereafter, Kejriwal called for the school principal for a personal appearance. During the hearing, the principal admitted that the school had received ‘substantial’ grant from the government for setting up infrastructure in its initial stage, although the government does not play any role in day-to-day affairs of the school.

However, wives of senior bureaucrats have overall management control over the school. Wife of the cabinet secretary is ex-offico chairperson of the Board of Management and wives of many civil servants are on the board, the principal told the commission.

Based on the admission, Kejriwal directed the school to impart the sought information to the applicant Kumar by February 15 and response to all RTI applications.

Email Chetan Chauhan: chetan @hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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