Economic Times: Chandigarh: Thursday,
June 30, 2016.
Haryana's BJP
government has refused to disclose the property details of chief minister
Manohar Lal Khattar and his ministers under the Right to Information (RTI) Act
terming it as "personal information". The government has said no
despite the previous Congress government under Bhupinder Singh Hooda giving the
details under the Act.
Activist P P
Kapoor, who had sought the information from the cabinet branch of the state
government in March, approached the state information commission which in turn
has issued a notice to the officials.
Urvashi
Gulati, a former chief secre tary of Haryana, will now hear the explanations of
the officials on July 28. Interestingly, the Haryana government has refused to
give the details when the Union cabinet does not mind sharing the same details
online. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assets and liabilities are
available on the website pmindia.gov.in. In a 2011 order by the then Cabinet
secretary K Chan drashekhar, Union minis ters are expected to disclose details
of their assets and liabilities by August 31 according to the code of conduct.
The government order came after RTI applications demanding transparency in
property details of public servants were stonewalled for months by the
government, Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
As of now
besides the Prime Minister and the council of ministers, bureaucrats in the
central government, information commissioners and the chief information commis
sioner are expected to make their assets and liabilities public. Kapoor has
argued that the ministers are public servants and their property details should
be given under RTI.
When the
officials denied the details, Kapoor initially approached undersecretary-level
officials of the branch. But they said that the information was personal
"which stands exempted from disclosure under clause (i) of section 8 (1)
of the RTI Act unless it involves a larger public interest as held by the
Supreme Court".
They also
quoted a 2013 order of the Punjab and Haryana high court which held that
provisions of the RTI Act would not be available to a disgrun tled employee
seeking information regarding a public official which is otherwise personal in
nature.
However,
Kapoor explained that the information was sought in public interest for
transparency in administration. "The information which cannot be denied to
the Parliament and state legislature can't be denied to the public
either," Kapoor added.
Giving his
comments to the state information commission, superintendent of the cabinet
branch Jarnail Singh said, "The appellant has not made a bona fide public
interest and not succeeded in establishing that the information sought for is
for larger public interest."
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