Indian Express: New Delhi: Tuesday, August 22, 2017.
The Central
Information Commission has slammed the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and
the Sports Authority of India for not providing an annual schedule of sporting
events and directed them to proactively put it up on their websites.
Information
Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said such a "proactive disclosure" was
mandatory under the Right to Information Act.
The
commission also directed the ministry and the SAI to update their official
websites with the roster and schedules "to avoid the sports lovers from
filing RTI requests for such routine information and report compliance to this
commission before September 15".
"If the
Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports says that it does not know what is the
schedule or roster of sports of the year in the nation, there is nothing more
embarrassing than this," Acharyulu said.
He said the
ministry is expected to have at least the schedule of various sporting events
for the year.
"Whether
the ministry wants the sports lovers to file an RTI to know the sports
calendar?" he quipped.
The order
came on a plea of Deepak Sandhu who had sought certified copies of roster of
various sporting events, that come under the ministry, Sports Authority of
India (SAI) and their subordinate authorities, conducted in a year.
He had also
sought sports calendar for 2015-16.
Having failed
to get any information, Sandhu approached the commission.
"At
least the Sports Authority of India should have supplied this information. It
was the duty of the CPIO of the ministry to collect the schedule and keep it as
part of its record and supplied the same to the applicant," Acharyulu
said.