The Wire: New Delhi: Saturday, July 14, 2018.
During his
Independence Day speech from Red Fort in 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had
stated that his government had started work on 118 pending projects worth Rs
7.5 lakh crore and restarted 270 stuck projects worth Rs 10 lakh crore which
had been inaugurated by previous governments but had gotten stuck along the
way.
However, two
years down the line, the Prime Minister’s Office does not appear to know where
he got these figures from.
The PMO
recently told the Central Information Commission in response to a query from an
appellant, Parmesh Ranjan, who wanted to know the details of these projects,
that the request for information is ‘sweeping’, ‘generic’ and ‘vague’, and a
compilation of the same would entail a laborious search of several files.
‘Gathering
information would involve searching voluminous records by a significant number
of officials’
Further,
Chief Information Commissioner R.K. Mathur recorded in his order that the
Central Public Information Officer in the PMO, under secretary Parveen Kumar,
submitted before him during the hearing on July 11 that “information sought by
the appellant would involve searching of voluminous records by a significant
number of officials and an attempt to compile the information in the manner
sought would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority
from the efficient discharge of its normal functions”.
The PMO
official had also referred to the decision of the Supreme Court of India in
CBSE vs Aditya Bandopadhyay and others to note that the matter attracts the
provisions of Section 7(9) of the RTI Act, 2005, which states that “an
information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought
unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority
or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in
question”.
A project
called ‘Progress’
Incidentally,
in his speech delivered on August 15, 2016, Modi had declared from the ramparts
of Red Fort: “I have a project called ‘Progress’. Under this project, every
month, I myself sit and review all the ongoing projects. You would be amazed to
know that almost 119 projects worth Rs. 7.5 lakh crores started by various
previous governments were lying pending. I got all of them going.”
He had also
spoken about restarting stuck projects saying they had been “started somewhere
between 25 to 30 to 15 years earlier.”
Modi had
stated that his government had “identified 270 such projects worth Rs 10 lakh
crore which were inaugurated by some earlier governments” and on which crores
of rupees had been spent. “All that money was going down the drain. We started all
such stuck up projects once again,” he had declared.
What did
the PM base his statement on?
For his part,
the appellant had contested this stand of the PMO that the information was
sweeping even when it was used to deny him information in the very beginning
and asked what the PM had based his statement on. Ranjan had disputed the
findings of the CPIO under Section 7(9) of the RTI Act, 2005, whereby the CPIO
stated that the information sought was “sweeping, generic and vague” and as
such the collation of the information would require the undertaking of a
thorough search of numerous files. The statement also termed it to be and
indiscriminate and impractical demand under the RTI Act in terms of the
decision of the Supreme Court of India.
Mathur
recorded that Ranjan had stated that “the information should be available in
the compiled form on the basis of which the PM had made his statement”. He had
also contended that the decision of CBSE v Aditya Bandopadhyay & Ors is not
applicable to the facts of this case.
CIC demands
PMO provide basic information within 30 days, exempts details
The
Commissioner in his order ruled that “prima facie information is expected to be
available” for points A (pertaining to 118 projects worth Rs 7.5 lakh crore)
and B (270 projects worth Rs 10 lakh crore) in compiled form and hence this may
be provided. He directed PMO to provide this information within 30 days.
Mathur also
noted that the remaining detailed information sought would require examining of
extensive records of 388 projects involving large number of ministries and
therefore fell squarely under the ambit of Section 7(9) of the RTI Act, i.e.
information is voluminous in naturem and hence may not be provided.
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