Hindustan Times: New
Delhi: Tuesday, April 02, 2013.
The decisions
taken by the chairpersons of the two houses of Parliament were protected under
Parliamentary privileges and therefore, are not covered under the transparency
law the Right To Information (RTI) Act, the Central Information Commission has
observed.
Country’s
information watchdog, however, allowed the respective chairpersons to decide
whether the information can be disclosed to RTI applicants or not.
The CIC
delivered its views while deciding an appeal filed by RTI application Subhash
Aggarwal seeking communication between Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar and Leader
of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj on appointment of Lok Sabha secretary
general TK Vishwanathan.
The Lok Sabha
secretariat had given the letter written by Swaraj to Lok Sabha speaker
protesting against his appointment but what the speaker told the leader of
opposition was not provided.
The
commission said that the Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar should take a call
whether the information should be provided or not. The privilege under which
the information is denied should enlisted in the communication to the
applicant, the CIC order said.
Aggarwal’s
request for all communication between the Speaker and Prime Minister in the
last three years was also denied on the ground of being privilege information.
The
commission, in its order said that it agreed with the contention of Lok Sabha
that drawing a parallel between the correspondence made available by the
‘Election Commission of India’ or the ‘National Advisory Council’ and the correspondence
between the Prime Minister and the Speaker was not appropriate. Reason being a
specific provision under section 8 of the RTI Act regarding breach of privilege
of the Parliament or State Legislature, the commission said.
Therefore,
the commission said only that information not attracting section 8 of the RTI
Act should be provided.
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