Deccan Herald: New Delhi:
Sunday, April 28, 2013.
Finance
Ministry should appoint a nodal officer to distribute RTI applications to the
concerned central public information officer for processing, the Delhi High
Court has directed while upholding the order of Central Information Commission
in this regard.
The Finance
Ministry has five departments-- Economic Affairs, Revenue, Expenditure,
Financial Services and Disinvestment.
Each one of
them have different sets of Central Public Information Officers for processing
RTI applications but there is none to process queries which are directed to the
Ministry.
The Finance
Ministry had challenged before the Delhi High Court an order of Central
Information Commission which directed it to designate at least one officer to
whom RTI applications related to Ministry can be addressed.
"In case
a CPIO is appointed for the Ministry of Finance, the implementation of the
provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005 and processing of all RTI
applications of all departments of the Ministry of Finance would become
difficult and extremely time consuming which will result in prejudice to the
citizens of the country as well," Finance Ministry had pleaded before the
High Court.
Setting aside
Ministry's plea, Justice Rajiv Shakdher in a recent order directed it to
publicise name of a Nodal officer who will received RTI application and process
them to ascertain as to the department to which it pertains.
"On
completion of this exercise, the application received by the Nodal officer will
be marked to the CPIO of the concerned department.
"In case
the information pertains to more than one department, photocopies of the
information would be supplied to CPIOs of all such departments so that there is
no delay in reciept of information by the querist," he said.
Justice
Shakdher said the Nodal officer on receipt of the information and processing
the same will immediately write to the querist, indicating to him, the CPIO of
the concerned department to whom his application is marked.
"The
return communication of the Nodal Officer shall set out the name, address and
telephone number of the said CPIO to facilitate exchange to furture
communication between the two, if found necessary," he directed.
Justice
Shakdher said the order of the CIC is supplanted with the directions issued by
him.
"Needless
to say, if any application is preferred by a querist, which does not indicate
the name of the concerned CPIO, these will be entertained in the first instance
by the Nodal officer and thereafter dealt with in accordance with the
directions issued hereinabove," he ordered.
The case
relates to RTI application filed by Subhash Agrawal seeking information related
to use of currency notes to felicitate the then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister
Mayawati in 2010. Agrawal had addressed his application to the CPIO of the
Finance Ministry.
The Ministry
returned the application claiming that they do not have any such officer for
the Ministry following which Agrawal approached CIC seeking redressal of his
complaint.
Chief
Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra ordered, "We have something
called a Ministry of Finance with a Finance Secretary in position. Therefore it
is rather odd that the Ministry does not itself have a CPIO.
"Even if
it is admitted that the Ministry operates through various departments under it,
the Ministry itself is in existence as a public authority and, therefore, it
needs to have a CPIO."
.JPG)
.JPG)
