Livemint:
New Delhi: Wednesday, 01 July 2015.
The
Construction Industry Development Council (CIDC) comes under the Right to
Information Act, Central Information Commission (CIC) has held, rejecting the
CIDC’s contention that it was a society, independent of any government funding
and not covered under the transparency law. The CIDC website describes it as
being set up by the erstwhile Planning Commission jointly with the construction
industry to take up activities for the development of the Indian construction
industry.
The case
relates to an RTI query filed by activist Subhash Agrawal, who did not get any
response to his queries related to file notings on setting up of CIDC by the
Planning Commission.
The CIDC was
not responding to the RTI application. In a hearing before the CIC’s full
bench, it claimed it was a society registered under the Societies Registration
Act, 1860 formed by various constituents of construction industry primarily
comprising construction companies and industry associations as per orders of
the Planning Commission.
Although CIDC
was started with a corpus from the Planning Commission, it claimed that it has
now attained self-sufficiency in funds and independent of any government
funding and therefore cannot be termed as public authority under the RTI Act.
The bench comprising the chief information commissioner Vijai Sharma and
information commissioners Sharat Sabharwal and Yashovardhan Azad, said it has
been stated by the CIDC that the annual reports of CIDC are presented in
Parliament, which indicates that the government exercises control over CIDC.
“The records reveal that the CIDC officers are making use of the Planning Commission’s
name i.e. by printing the name of ‘Planning Commission, Government of India’ on
their visiting cards, as does the website,” it said.
The bench
said there is unanimity of opinion that up to 2007, the chairman of the board
of governors of the CIDC was nominated by the deputy chairman of the Planning
Commission and that the chairman was also heading the managing committee of the
CIDC.
The Planning
Commission continues to be a permanent member of the CIDC, with total
exemptions regarding entrance and/or annual subscriptions. Presently, the
Planning Commission is represented in CIDC’s governing body by advisor
(Transport), Planning Commission,” the bench said. It pointed out that 13 out
of the 28 members of the CIDC governing body are either government servants or
from some or the other government institution.
The bench
said the monetary contributions from government organisations account as public
money and aggregate to 36% of initial corpus `1.99 crore in 1988. “...out of
the total corpus in 1998, 48% (by the Planning Commission) and 36% (government
organisations)= 84% of the finance was contributed by the government directly
or indirectly. This corpus aided the CIDC in building up its own infrastructure
and the edifice of the petitioner’s substratum was built by such funding,” it
said. The bench said it cannot be argued by the CIDC that no substantial
grant-in-aid is received and therefore it could not be regarded as “public
authority”.
“In the light
of the foregoing discussion, the role of the government is evidently deep and
pervasive in the respondent organisation right from its inception to funding,
control and operations....We are of the considered opinion that the CIDC is
substantially financed by the Central Government and is a fit organisation to
be defined as ‘public authority’...under the RTI Act,” the bench said.