Daily
Pioneer: New Delhi: Tuesday, October 16, 2012.
The Central
Information Commission (CIC) has directed the PMO to first ensure if an
information sought by an applicant even existed within the department before
routinely seeking exemptions under the RTI Act for not disclosing them. A
Delhi-based RTI activist Vivek Garg had sought to know the details of
correspondence between the PMO and the CBI, DRI, ED and RAW in connection with
the 2G spectrum allocation.
But the PMO
didn’t disclose the information, citing the exemption clause of the RTI Act.
“In the scheme of things, it is very unlikely that the Prime Minister of India
or the PMO would enter into correspondence with individual investigating or
intelligence agencies on any such matters. Instead of routinely seeking
exemption under one or the other provisions of the Right to Information (RTI)
Act, it would always be better to first find out if the information itself
exists and only then to decide if the information could be disclosed or not,”
the CIC Satyananda Mishra said in his order.
The CIC asked
the PMO to address each queries raised by the appellants separately and confirm
if the desired information exists and whether it can be disclosed. “If the
information or some of it can be disclosed, the Central Public Information
Officer shall send the same to the Appellant,” Mishra said in his order.
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