CIC: Ministers answerable under RTI
New Delhi, March 13
Centre, states told to designate staff
- Information
Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu: Authority in RTI Act includes all
persons or bodies conferred with power to perform the functions
entrusted to them under the Constitution
- Says claim that Cabinet
minister does not have necessary infrastructure to support the
applicability of the RTI Act and hence cannot be held as ‘public
authority’ is not tenable
- Asks Centre and states to give necessary support to each minister
Ministers in the Union and state Cabinets are “public authorities”
liable to answer public questions addressed to them under the Right to
Information Act, the Central Information Commission has ruled.
This directive will mean that people can directly send questions to a
minister by filing an RTI application, which will be answered by a
public information officer in his office.
“The commission strongly recommends the Centre and states to provide
necessary support to each minister, including designating officers, or
appointing public information officers and first appellate authorities,”
Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu held.
“The probable claim that a Cabinet minister does not have the necessary
infrastructure to support the applicability of the RTI Act inasmuch as
the minister is a singular person office... hence cannot be held as
‘public authority’ is not tenable,” he held.
The Information Commissioner directed that the “oath of secrecy” be
replaced with an “oath of transparency” so the minister respects the
right to information of the citizen, which was passed by Parliament and
considered as fundamental right intrinsic in Article 19(1)(a) of the
Constitution.
Acharyulu was adjudicating the case of Hemant Dhage of Ahmednagar, who
sought to know from the staff of the then Union Minister for Law and
Justice the scheduled time for people to meet the Cabinet minister and
minister of state. He was directed to seek time from the minister
himself.
Acharyulu said, “It is pitiful that a citizen has to file an RTI request
to know the timings and process of meeting their chosen minister, which
should have been ordinarily provided on their own.” He said if there
was no such facility, the minister’s office should declare that “there
is no such facility”. — PTI
