The Wire: New Delhi: Friday, January 20, 2017.
Taking strong
exception to the manner in which Central Information Commissioner Sridhar
Acharyulu was divested of the charge of hearing appeals and complaints related
to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) days after he directed the
disclosure of information of Delhi University’s degree records from 1978 the
year in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to have completed his
undergraduate course a number of RTI activists have urged the Chief
Information Commissioner R.K. Mathur to place in the public domain the reasons
for Acharyulu’s transfer.
In a letter
to Mathur, the activists have stated that the decision to take away the charge
of the HRD ministry from Acharyulu was being “widely perceived as emanating
from political interference in the functioning of the CIC, since it was taken
within weeks of the commissioner’s order allowing for inspection of Delhi
University’s BA degree records of 1978, the year Prime Minister Modi completed
his undergraduate degree as per his affidavit available on the website of the
Election Commission of India.”
The decision,
they said, also appears to be sudden since on December 29, 2016, the CIC in its
order of allocation of work had allowed Acharyulu to retain the charge of the
HRD ministry.
Pointing out
that “this perception is extremely worrying as it compromises the autonomy of
the Central Information Commission, which has been set up under the RTI Act as
an autonomous and empowered institution to dispose matters relating to peoples’
fundamental right to information,” the activists – Anjali Bhardwaj, Aruna Roy, Shailesh
Gandhi, Nikhil Dey, Amrita Johri, Pankti Jog, Rakesh Dubbudu, Bhaskar Prabhu,
Vijay Kumbhar, Dolphy D’Sousa and Anand Castelino reminded the head of the CIC
that information commissioners have been given the status equivalent to judges
of the Supreme Court “to ensure that commissioners discharge their duties in an
independent manner”.
Therefore,
they demanded that Mathur “place in the public domain the reasons for
transferring the charge of hearing appeals and complaints related to the
Ministry of HRD away from the bench of Prof. Acharyulu.”
In any case,
they also reminded him that under Section 4 of the RTI Act, the reasons for all
administrative and quasi-judicial decisions have to be proactively disclosed.
The RTI
activists have also urged that in the absence of compelling and valid reasons,
Mathur should restore the charge of the HRD ministry to Acharyulu.
The Wire had
earlier reported how Acharyulu lost charge of the HRD ministry without being
given any valid reasons.
However,
undeterred by the Centre’s move to sideline him, Acharyulu has been going about
performing his role without any fear.
Only a couple
of days before that he had directed the Central Board of Secondary Education to
allow inspection of the class 10 and 12 records of union minister Smriti Irani,
rejecting the board’s contention that it constituted “personal information”.
The Wire also
reported how Acharyulu had directed the office of the union minister of
textiles and the Holy Child Auxilium School, Delhi, from where Irani claimed to
have finished class 12, to provide her roll number or reference number to CBSE,
Ajmer, which possesses the records for the years 1991 and 1993 “to facilitate
search from huge records which is yet to be digitised.”
Rejecting the
argument that the information was “personal information” and thus cannot be
disclosed, Acharyulu had stated: “The Commission directs the respondent
authority, the CBSE, to facilitate inspection of relevant records and provide
certified copies of documents selected by the appellant free of cost, except
personal details in admit card and mark sheet, within 60 days from the date of
receipt of this order.”
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