Some landmark CIC judgements

Published on: Jan 1, 2007, 21:12:00 IST

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RTI : some important cases.

File notings: On January 31, the CIC ruled that as per the existing provisions of RTI Act, a citizen has the right to seek information contained in ‘file notings’ unless the same relates to matters covered under Section 8 of the Act. This section lists national security and such grounds that can exempt a piece of information from disclosure. The CIC didn’t categorise the information contained in file notings and therefore, all types of information could be sought.

UPSC case: On November 13, the CIC asked Union Public Service Commission to provide scores to civil service aspirants subject-wise. CIC also recommended that the model answer sheets should also be disclosed from time to time. The commission rejected the UPSC’s contention that the information was secret and revealing it could compromise fairness of the examination system.

DISCOM case: The CIC’s decided in December that power companies are "public authorities" and therefore are covered under the purview of the Right to Information Act. As per the CIC order, the power companies are required to appoint Public Information Officers (PIOs) by February 1. They are also required to inform the public by putting up the details of the RTI infrastructure on their websites. For now though, the discoms are "studying the CIC order" and are in no hurry to implement it.

Gujarat letters: On the controversial issue of communication between former President KR Naryanan and former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee, the CIC asked the government to provide the communication in a sealed cover to it for examination whether it would be in public interest to disclose information or not. For the first time, the commission sought letters between country’s top executive heads for examination as per the RTI Act.

CBSE case: The CIC in December ordered the Central Board of Secondary Education to give a Delhi student question-wise marks awarded to her in the Class X science and technology paper in 2005. CBSE had objected saying there were no provisions in the examination by-laws of the board to show the answer-script to candidates.

Officials Secrets Act has no meaning now: The babus labelling file as ‘confidential’ could not be an excuse for denying information sought under the Right to Information Act. CIC Wajahat Habibullah observed that withholding the information either on the ground that the information is classified as "confidential" under Officials Secrets Act or under section 8 (2) of RTI would be wrong interpretation of the law.

He said the public authority could withhold the information that comes under the ambit of section 8 (1) of the RTI Act. He further added that the public authority could label any information as "confidential" per section 8 (1) and not the Official Secrets Act - the normal practices in government offices. Thus, the information labelled as "confidential" under the Officials Secrets Act, 1923 would not stand under the new observation.

First hearing using video-conferencing: In May, the CIC for the first time conducted hearing through video-conferencing in a case where penalty provisions were to be invoked on an official based in Raipur. The official through video-conferencing presented his case before the commission.

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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