CLAT Booze Bills: NUJS defies providing information under RTI Act .

Bar & Bench: Kolkata: Thursday, May 17, 2012.

Prof. M. P. Singh, former Vice-Chancellor of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS), Kolkata, in an interview with Associate Editor, Raghul Sudheesh admitted that huge expenses were incurred on the 2011 CLAT Core Committee meetings organized by WBNUJS, especially on liquor. Pursuant to this Sudheesh had filed an RTI Application at WBNUJS asking for a detailed break-up of expenses incurred on CLAT Core Committee Meetings.

Sudheesh’s first RTI dated March 13, 2012 filed before the Dr. Surajit C. Mukhopadhyay, Registrar and Public Information Officer sought, per participant and per meeting break-up of expenses incurred on Travel, Room Rent, Food and Beverages and Alcoholic Beverages during the CLAT Core Committee meetings. Sudheesh’s first RTI was rejected on the ground that the Demad Draft (DD) of Rs. 10, the RTI application fee, was drawn in the favour of “Registrar, WBNUJS” and not the “Accounts Officer, WBNUJS”. WBNUJS Registrar is also the Public Information Officer (PIO) and hence the DD was drawn in his favour. Even in the Supreme Court, where the Additional Registrar is the PIO, the DD can be in favour of the Registrar/Accounts Officer.

Pursuant to this Sudheesh filed his second RTI application on April 11, 2012 seeking the same information and also drew a DD in the name of “Accounts Officer” as prescribed by the WBNUJS authorities. The RTI application was received by them on April 13, 2012. As per Section 7(1) of the Right to Information Act, the PIO is bound to give the information within 30 days. Since no response was received by Sudheesh even after 35 days, he sent an email to the Registrar today, who is also PIO of WBNUJS as copied below.

Dear Sir,

This is pursuant to the RTI application I filed dated 11/4/2012. I had sent a hard copy of the same along with a DD of Rs. 10 drawn in the name of Accounts Officer, WBNUJS; the same has reached you on 13/4/2012.

I have not received any response on the application till now. Please let me know the status of the application else I will be pursing proceedings under the RTI Act for not furnishing information.

Best Regards,

Raghul Sudheesh

The Registrar in his response said, “Your application was processed and is being sent to you. You may pursue proceedings as you deem fit”.

Another mail asking if the information has already been dispatched received no response.

Earlier a Bar & Bench news report has indicated that WBNUJS Kolkata, NLU Jodhpur and RMLNLU Lucknow provide only the details of the Public Information Officer (PIO) and the Appellate Authority (AA) on their websites. All other information mandated by section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act has not been published on the websites of these colleges. NLSIU Bangalore, NALSAR Hyderabad, GNLU Gandhinagar and NLU Delhi have provided comprehensive Section 4 information on their respective websites.

All of the information required under section 4 should have been provided on WBNUJS’s website within 120 days from the enactment of the RTI Act. Considering the fact that the RTI Act became fully operational on October 12, 2005 they should have done this by the end of February, 2006. The University is lagging behind by almost six years three months to implement this Act in their University.

In a separate instance, once the University even claimed that they are not a public authority and thus are not entitled to furnish any public information.

It is highly disappointing to see a top law school in the country is not complying with the provisions of this revolutionary legislation and is adopting delay tactics for not providing information.