MSN India; New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI)
The Central Information Commission is likely to direct all the central ministries, PSUs and government departments to implement provisions of ''proactive disclosures'' in the RTI Act.
Section four of the RTI Act mandates categorisation and indexing of records and placing them in public domain.
The section aims at ensuring transparency in governance which will gradually reduce the need for filing RTI application by the citizen to get the information.
According to the RTI Act, the provisions of the section should have been implemented within 120 days of implementation of the transparency law but the compliance has not been fully ensured by all the public authorities even after five years.
"We have decided to issue an order to all the public authorities to prepare a negative list of documents which cannot be made public. The rest of the records should be put in public domain as compliance of the section four of the RTI Act," Chief Information Commissioner A N Tiwari told PTI.
The Commissioner had convened a meeting of nine PSUs in this regard in October during which they were asked to follow the same.
"The response was encouraging so we decided to direct all the authorities under section 19 of the Act to ensure compliance of the Act," he said.
Chief Information Commissioner Tiwari and five other Commissioners have already signed the order whereas Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi could not do so as he is out of town.
He is likely to come back tomorrow and sources in Commission said that final order could be signed early this week.
Several leading RTI activists are demanding implementation of proactive disclosure under the transparency law as could help in axing corruption scandals across the country.
Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi has also asked the Delhi Government to make public documents related to tendering of construction works of CWG, assets of Delhi Jal Board officials, water supply timings, ration card details among others on their web site to ensure greater transparency.
In the order, it is expected that the CIC would ask the public authorities to comply with section four in next 120 days.
"Once records are in public domain, there will be little need to file an RTI application to get the information and go through hassles of appeals and waiting period at the Commission.
It will also do away the need to file RTI application by different individuals on similar issues and will also curb vexatious and frivolous applications," Tiwari said.
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