PIL seeks hosting of all GOs on website without filtering

The Hindu: Madurai: Friday, 04 March 2016.

A public interest litigation (PIL) petition has been filed in the Madras High Court Bench here seeking a direction to the State government to host all its orders, circulars and notifications on its website without any restrictions.

K.K. Ramesh, managing trustee of Tamil Nadu Centre for Public Interest Litigation, a private body, filed the case stating that the government was at present hosting only select Government Orders on its website under the head ‘GOs of public interest.’

Questioning the rationale behind the government deciding what is of public interest and what is not, the petitioner said that it was only appropriate that the officials were directed to host all the orders, circulars and notification without filtering any of them. In an affidavit filed in support of his writ petition, the petitioner said that many a times it became difficult for a common man to get hold of a particular G.O., circular or a notification required by him even through the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005.

Alleging that Public Information Officers of most of the government departments provided an evasive reply to RTI applications, he said that appellate authorities too failed to act and second appeals preferred with State Information Commission remained pending for years.