Hindustan
Times: New Delhi: Tuesday, 04 August 2015.
The home
ministry won’t tell why and how, the Centre decided to issue its controversial
notification in May this year that stripped chief minister Arvind Kejriwal of
his right to be consulted by Raj Niwas.
The home
ministry has refused to make public documents relating to the May 21
notification under the Right to Information Act, saying the matter was
sub-judice.
The RTI Act,
however, does not exempt information relating to a case pending before a court.
Under the
law, information of a sub-judice matter could be denied if it is “expressly
forbidden to be published by any court of law or tribunal or the disclosure of
which may constitute contempt of court”.
But the
ministry’s response to RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal is in line with its
approach to try regulating the flow of information out of the ministry.
The home
ministry had cited the same grounds to block an application filed by HT to
access the file relating to its last year’s notification to clip the wings of
the Delhi government’s anti-corruption branch.
Last month,
the home ministry also barred journalists from interacting with senior
officials other than the spokesperson and came up with a set of guidelines on
dissemination of information to the media.
A Delhi
government official suggested the home ministry appeared determined to block
access to these files under the transparency law over concerns that it could
embarrass the Centre.
Home minister
Rajnath Singh has insisted that the centre had not withdrawn any powers from
the Kejriwal government but only clarified on the constitutional position.
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