Economic Times: New Delhi: Thursday, July 27, 2017.
The Delhi
High Court has disapproved of dilatory tactics by the Delhi government’s
Directorate of Education in denying information on income and expenditure of
private schools sought under the Right to Information and ordered it to
consider the application in accordance with the law.
Instead of
entertaining the application seeking to know if an audit of private schools had
been conducted, the public information officer (PIO) of the directorate
forwarded the request to its 29 deputy directors, who in turn passed it on to
the over 1,400 schools.
“Clearly,
transferring the petitioner’s application to various schools is unsustainable,”
the HC ruled, disapproving of the dilatory tactics. “The public information
officer is required to provide all such information as sought for, subject to
the exceptions as provided under the (RTI) Act.”
In its
response, the directorate said some of the information was “confidential in
nature” and thus the “director pub may not be in a position to supply the
same.” Forwarding the application to the schools meant that if they chose not
to respond, the applicant would have to file over 1,400 appeals against
nondisclosure of information. Aggrieved, petitioner Shikha Bagga approached the
Delhi High Court.
“The question
involved in the present case does not entail examination of whether the information
sought for is confidential or is to be withheld from the petitioner.
The
petitioner’s grievance is regarding transfer of her application to other PIOs
and thereafter to various schools,” the court said in the order last week. The
HC made it clear it has not expressed any opinion on whether the information
ought to be made available to the petitioner.
“That
question would be examined by PIO in the first instance,” it said. The
directorate has been ordered to “consider the application” of the petitioner
“in accordance with law” instead of adopting dilatory tactics. It set aside the
order by which the application was forwarded to the deputies and onward to the
schools.
ET View:
Make information public
The court is
right. Dither and delay in responding to RTI applications is unfair to a
citizen. The law is meant to disclose reasons that inform policy making. The
citizen has the right to seek clarifications on what the government has done or
proposes to do about something that is of importance to her. It makes sense for
the government now to move from parting with information on request to making
the information available in public domain, without even waiting for an RTI
query.
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