PTI
NEW DELHI, MARCH 13
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 that ministers are answerable under the RTI Act 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 some officers, or appointing as Public Information Officers and First Appellate Authorities,” Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu held in his order.
The Information Commissioner directed that ‘oath of secrecy’ be replaced with ‘oath of transparency’ so that the minister will respect the right to information of the citizen, which was passed by the Parliament and considered as fundamental right intrinsic in Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, and be answerable/accountable to the citizens.
Mr. 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.
Citing Ramayana, Mr. Acharyulu said, “It is borne by epics that Emperor Maryada Purushottam Shri Ram used to have a bell in front of his palace, and whoever rings it he could come out of his residence to meet the citizen and hear him, reflecting grievance redressal mechanism in Ram Rajya.”
Mr. Acharyulu said it is not proper for the public authority (Ministry of Law and Justice) to direct the appellant to check with the minister himself and take the appointment.
He said if there was no such facility of meeting, the minister’s office should declare that ‘there is no such facility.’
On ministers being public authorities, Mr. Acharyulu said the expression “authority” in RTI Act would include all persons or bodies conferred with power to perform the functions entrusted to them under the Constitution and merely because ministers are individuals, the same would not render their offices any less authoritative than other constitutional functionaries.
“If lack of infrastructure is prescribed as the criteria for imposing transparency obligations, then none would be obliged to inform. That was never the intention of the RTI Act,” the Information Commissioner held.
Quoting Article 75, 75, 75(2), 75(3), 163 and 164 of the Constitution besides Supreme Court order in P.V. Narasimha Rao vs. State in which a Legislature is declared as a public servant, he said the expression “authority” as used in Section 2(h) of the RTI Act cannot be read as a term to exclude bodies or entities which are, essentially, performing functions in their individual capacity.
