Economic Times: New Delhi: Monday, January 29, 2018.
Even if a
public authority has the power to call for certain information, it is not
mandatorily required to seek the data to provide it to an applicant under the
RTI Act, the Delhi High Court has held.
The court
said that the authority can only provide information which is available with it
to an applicant under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
"The Act
is available to make transparent any information that they have. You cannot ask
a public authority to mandatorily procure an information, even if they have the
power to do so," Justice Vibhu Bakhru observed.
The
observations by the court came while disposing of a plea challenging an order
of the Central Information Commission (CIC) which had declined to direct the
Delhi government to call for further information from a private unaided school
regarding terms and conditions of service of its employees.
The CIC had
disposed of the plea of the RTI applicant, who was employed in the private
school, with a direction to the Delhi government to provide him an audit report
of affairs of the school which the institution would have submitted under the
Delhi School Education Rules, 1973.
Upholding the
CIC's September 21, 2017 decision, the high court said there was "no
infirmity" in it and added that private unaided schools are open to
scrutiny by the Delhi government, but not the general public.
It also
said,"The fact that the public authority has the power to call for certain
information does not make it mandatory for the said authority to seek that
information and provide the same to any information seeker under the provisions
of the RTI Act.
"The
public authority can only provide the information as is available with it,
provided disclosure of such information is not exempt under section 8 of the
Act."
The court, in
its order, however, said that if the Delhi government has any information other
than the audit report pertaining to the affairs of the private school, the
petitioner-RTI applicant can seek the same.
"Needless
to mention that such information would be provided to the petitioner subject to
the provisions of the Act," it said.
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