Times of India: New Delhi: Wednesday, January 10, 2018.
CIC has come
down hard on an RTI applicant for what it termed an "abuse of the process
of law". The RTI, which had sought "academic" answers to
"inane" medical science queries, was dubbed as an attempt to
"harass public officials," said information commissioner Yashovardhan
Azad.
The RTI
applicant had approached AIIMS, ILBS, GB Pant Hospital, PGIMER, Chandigarh, and
National Organ and Tissue transplant organisation at Safdarjung hospital for
the queries. When the appeal filed by GB Pant Hospital came before the central
information commission (CIC), it termed the RTI a "misuse" of the RTI
Act.
The applicant
had sought to know from the premier institutes the definitions (as per King's
College, London criteria), symptoms, causes, treatment, precautions monitoring
18 complex medical conditions related to liver transplant, Pneumonitis Sepsis,
Small For Size syndrome, Ischemic Necrosis of liver, bile duct dilation, portal
vein thrombosis etc.
He had also
sought information on handling of liver transplant patients, technical causes
of conditions developing after that, waiting period criteria for the patients
among others.
During the
hearing before CIC, noted RTI activist Subhash Agrawal represented the GB Pant
hospital to argue against the disclosure of the information as it was available
in medical journals and the application seemed like abuse of the RTI Act.
"These
are academic queries, to be studied from medical books and journals, not information
as envisaged under Section 2(f) of the RTI Act," said Azad, adding,
"...there appears no reason to put the PIO of a public authority through
unnecessary hardship in providing any response to such queries."
Azad said
seeking these information through an RTI application actually is an abuse of
the process of law and if such a request is allowed, the day will not be far
when information from any textbook will be sought to be answered by filing an
RTI application. "Clearly, that was neither the legislative intent nor
purpose behind the enactment of the RTI Act aimed at transparency and
establishing a practical regime of disbursement of information," Azad
said.
He said
simply because the RTI Act does not mandate any reason to be furnished by the
information seeker to state his intent behind the RTI application, does not
grant the citizen the liberty to misuse the act to "harass" the
public officials with inane queries. Dismissing the application, Azad warned
the applicant to be careful in future and refrain from abusing the RTI Act
"as a weapon or toy at his whims and fancies".
.JPG)
.JPG)
