The
Times of India: Chandigarh: Tuesday, November 06, 2012.
Punjab and
Haryana high court on Monday stayed orders of Central Information Commission
(CIC) through which CIC had brought city's elitist Chandigarh Golf Club (CGC)
under the purview of Right to Information (RTI) Act. HC passed these orders
while hearing a petition filed by CGC against the orders of CIC passed on
October 8.
In its
petition, CGC has argued that CIC has erred in taking a myopic and
hyper-technical view of the provisions laid down under Section 2 (h) of the
Right to Information Act, 2005, and CGC does not fall within the laid down
parameters, and hence cannot be considered to fall within the purview and
definition of public authority.
It was argued
by the club that Golf Club was not a commercial establishment, rather a social
establishment catering to the welfare of members. On October 8, CIC had held
the club to be a "public authority' and asked the club authorities to set
up a mechanism within four weeks for the delivery of RTI services to any member
of the public. The decision was taken by CIC member Deepak Sandhu in response
to a complaint filed by city resident Brig (retd) Sukhdev Singh. HC has now
fixed January 10 as the next date of hearing and asked Brig (retd) Sukhdev
Singh to file his response in the matter.
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