Times
of India: New Delhi: Thursday, 30 April 2015.
A file
related to delegation of financial powers to chief information commissioner is
untraceable in the government according to a RTI response.
According to
the RTI Act, only chief information commissioner (CIC) has financial,
administrative and general superintendence powers.
An RTI
applicant Lokesh Batra had sought to know from the Department of Personnel and
Training (DoPT) information on the file where delegation of financial powers
was given by the government to CIC in 2005-06. In response, the DoPT said, the
requisite file was not traceable.
Batra said
how can the initial key files of DoPT and CIC regarding 'placing infrastructure
to Central Information Commission' be allowed to go missing. "These file
are of historic nature," he said.
"If the
initial file of 2005 on which financial powers for CIC were approved by the
then finance minister (FM) were not traceable, then on what basis DoPT has
recorded in current file that the conferring financial powers to the CIC
initially in 2006 was 'inadvertent'," Batra questioned.
The working
of the transparency panel has hit a stumbling block with the post of chief
information commissioner lying vacant since August 22, 2014.
.JPG)
.JPG)
