Bar
& Bench: Chennai: Wednesday, 24 September 2014.
In a judgment
that is likely to have far-reaching implications, the Madras High Court held
that applications under the RTI act must disclose the reasons for which
information has been sought. The judgment was delivered by a Division Bench of
Justices N Paul Vasanthakumar and K Ravichandrababu while hearing a challenge
to the Central Information Commission direction to the High Court to provide
certain information.
In January
last year, hearing an appeal filed by one B Bharathi, the CIC had directed the
Madras High Court to provide details on the appointment of the High Court’s
Registrar General, as well as the appointment of public prosecutors since 2006.
At the same time, the CIC had also cautioned Bharathi against “flooding” the
High Court with RTI applications. The CIC observed that,
Sending
numerous complaints and representations about these grievances and then
following those with RTI applications cannot be the way to redress such
grievances. Even in the pursuit of information, brevity is the soul of wit; a
few RTI applications seeking very pertinent and specific information can reveal
more than several dozen of repetitive petitioning.
It is this
order that the Madras High Court’s PIO successfully challenged before the
Madras High Court. Setting aside the CIC order, the Madras High Court held that
Bharathi had failed to disclose adequate reasons behind seeking the
information. The High Court held that the RTI Act does not provide an
unfettered right to information, and that,
“A person who
seeks information under the RTI Act, must show that the information sought for
is either for his personal interest or for a public interest. Under both
circumstances, the information seeker must disclose at least with bare minimum
details as to what is the personal interest or the public interest, for which
such information is sought for. If such details are either absent or not
disclosed, such query cannot be construed as the one satisfying the requirement
of the RTI Act.”
Continuing
with this school of thought, the division bench also said that,
“If
informations are to be furnished to a person, who does not have any reason or
object behind seeking such informations, in our considered view, the intention
of the Legislature is not to the effect that such informations are to be given
like pamphlets to any person unmindful of the object behind seeking such
information”
Understandably,
the decision has come under heavy criticism by RTI activists with Prashant
Bhushan deeming the order to be “illegal”. Bhushan also said that decisions
were just a method of “preventing administrative transparency” in the
judiciary.
Bhushan’s
criticism do carry a certain degree of legitimacy. Back in 2010 the Delhi High
Court had ruled that the RTI Act is applicable to the Supreme Court as
well. It was Bhushan who had argued the
matter, representing RTI activist Subhash Agarwal.
When
challenged before the Supreme Court, this decision was stayed and there has
been little progress in the case. Effectively, the administrative decisions of
the Supreme Court (and by extension the High Courts) remains outside the ambit
of the RTI Act.
At the same
time, there is also some truth to the observations made by the CIC itself,
specifically with regard to the smooth functioning of public institutions. Due
to the fact that PIOs are usually appointed on a de jure basis, replying to RTI
applications is just one of the PIO’s many responsibilities. In fact, even the
CIC had noted that Bharathi’s “flooding” of RTI applications could affect the
functioning of the institution.
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