News laundry: New Delhi: Wednesday,
June 01, 2016.
The CIC has
directed the Legislative Department of the Government of India to upload all
the laws enacted by Parliament as amended from time to time on its website.
The Delhi
High Court in a recent judgement upheld the order of the Central Information
Commission directing the Legislative Department of the Government of India to
upload all the laws enacted by Parliament as amended from time to time.
The Delhi
High Court, in a recent judgement has upheld an order of the Central
Information Commission (CIC) directing the Legislative Department, Government
of India to upload on the official website all laws enacted by Parliament as
amended from time to time. It has also upheld the CIC’s direction to the
Government to examine the functionality of the official email addresses of
officers of the Department.
Background
to the RTI
A law student
at the National Law School of India, University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, could not
find the complete version of a law passed by Parliament with all the latest
amendments online on the website of the Legislative Department, Government of
India. He then submitted an RTI application to the Legislative Department and
he claimed that the email bounced back. This application was filed in 2012. He
approached the CIC through a complaint in September, 2015.
The Law
student wanted to study the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1972 from the
website, but he couldn’t. Though he
could find the
Bare Act from the India Code website, it was
impossible to read
as the PDF of
Bare Act was
not at all formatted. The sentences were not
continuous and it was so confusing and difficult to correlate content and make
out even a single sentence. He contended that as a student of law, for his
course work he required to refer to several Bare Acts to ascertain the correct
position of law, but India Code website is not in a position to help the
students of law in any way.
What did
the CIC say?
Disposing of
the case, the CIC pointed out:
“It is the
minimum responsibility of state to provide updated information about
amendments, which will go in long way in helping people. The access to law is
not just a requirement of Law student and law researchers, but a necessity of
all citizens. For instance, the Parliament by the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act,
2013, has amended section 100 of Indian Penal Code, which provide a right of
private defence of body even to the extent of causing death in case of acid
attack. Many men or women are not even aware of self defence right that they
can even kill assailant if the later is attacking to kill, rape or throw acid,
or cause grievous hurt etc.”
The CIC
directed the Legislative Department as follows:
“11. The
Commission directs the respondent authority, Legislative Department to inform
the complainant and the Commission as to what action has been taken including
details of the programme of updation, the possible date of its completion,
expenditure involved, personnel employed etc. The Commission also recommends
the department to recognise urgency and significance of the issue, expedite the
process, allocate more fund to employ more personnel and complete the process
of updation as soon as possible.
12. The
Commission also directs the respondent authority to examine the functionality
of the email ID in view of the Complainant’s claim that most of the email IDs
have failed. The Legislative Department also should have perfect RTI filing
system and answer mechanism.”
Despite the
fact that the RTI was filed in 2012 and was resolved by the CIC only in
November 2015, the CIC directed the Legislative Dept. to pay Rs. 10,000/- as
compensation to the NLSIU as an exemplary measure. The Legislative Dept.
challenged the CIC’s order before the Delhi High Court.
What did
the Delhi High Court say?
The Delhi
High Court refused to interfere with the directions of the CIC. Upholding both
CIC directives relating to RTI, the Court said:
“3. In the
present writ petition, it has been averred that the respondent never filed an
RTI application in the prescribed form and the requisite fee. It is also stated
that the respondent did not file the first appeal and hence the second appeal
could not have been entertained by the CIC.
4.This Court is not an appellate Court of the
CIC. Technical and procedural arguments cannot be allowed to come in the way of
substantial justice. The directions given by the CIC in the impugned order are
not only fair and reasonable but also promote the concept of rule of law. It is
unfortunate that the petitioner did not take the initiative on its own to
upload the latest amended bare Acts.
5.Public can
be expected to follow the law only if law is easily accessible ‘at the click of
a button’. In fact, as rightly pointed out by the CIC, the RTI Act itself
mandates the Government to place the texts of enactments in public domain.”
The High
Court upheld the CIC’s order for token compensation saying:
“6. This
Court also take judicial notice of the fact that in challenging the imposition
of costs of Rs.10,000/-, the Government of India would have spent more money in
filing the present writ petition. Consequently, this Court is of the view that
the costs of Rs.10,000/- which was directed to be paid by the CIC, should be
recovered from the salary of the Government officials who authorized the filing
of the present writ petition.”
What are the
implications of the Court’s judgement?
This landmark
judgement, thanks to the intervention of the law student who ultimately had
little use for the information sought, by the time the case was decided, is
significant for multiple reasons:
· It makes it mandatory for the Government of India to
publish the amended version of laws as and when amendments are incorporated. In
India this is not common practice at either the Central or the State level. It
is very welcome that the government has now been reminded of its duty to
publish laws in their updated form and not piece meal main enactment in one
place and later amendments as separate documents.
· Another major problem that plagues access to laws is the
non-availability of rules and regulations made under a legislation by the
competent authority. While texts of laws enacted by Parliament are available on
official websites, rules and regulations made under them are not easily
available. Perhaps proactive disclosure of rules and regulations will require
another RTI intervention of this kind. The situation with laws enacted by State
legislatures is much worse in many States. Let alone the text of rules and
regulations, often it is difficult to find the texts of the main enactments
also.
· The Delhi High Court’s order is a step forward regarding
grant of compensation under the RTI Act. Until this judgement came out, the
position was that the RTI applicant had to demonstrate the nature of loss or
detriment suffered due to non-provision of access to information under the law.
However, now the Delhi High Court has held that compensation may be paid where
the costs involved in challenging such orders would be much more than saying
the compensation amount.
The short but
insightful order of the Delhi High Court contributes to the expansion of the
regime of transparency established by the RTI Act.
.JPG)
.JPG)
