Deccan
Chronicle: Kochi: Sunday, February 10, 2013.
The Right to
Information Act - 2005 seems unable to outgrow its fledgling problems and has
hit the ‘self-financing’ block. In an interesting case, the Mahatma Gandhi
University ordered the principal of a self-financing institution in 2012 to
provide information sought under the RTI Act while in 2013 it reversed its
opinion and told the petitioner that unaided/SF institutions did not come under
the purview of RTI Act.
The
university’s paradoxical verdicts have come years after it issued an order
stating that all its ‘affiliating colleges’ (which include SF colleges) come
under the purview of RTI Act. According to a senior official of the university,
the MGU had in 2006 issued an order delegating principals of the affiliated colleges
as public information officer (PIO) and office superintendent/administrative
officer as assistant PIO.
A directive
from B.B. Prasannan, joint registrar, who is the PIO of the MGU, to the
principal of Sree Narayana Guru Institute of Science and Technology, N Paravur,
Ernakulam, an SF college, on July 10, 2012, asked the latter to give requisite
details on a petition under RTI, which was complied with by the institution.
However, on January 29, 2013, K. Asokan, another joint registrar, reversed the
stand on a follow-up petition and said unaided/SF institutions did not come
under RTI. “Hence the university could not insist on the college to furnish the
details requested,” he said.
The MGU
official said that there was still confusion over the issue and hence the
different orders from different officials. He said that minority colleges had
got exemption from RTI through a court order.