The Indian Express: Mumbai:
Saturday, 01 August 2020.
The
Bombay High Court on Friday directed the BMC to provide facilities at its ward
offices for hearing appeals filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act
through virtual platform to appellants, who wish to argue their appeals through
video conference.
A
division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sarang V Kotwal was
hearing a PIL filed by advocate Mayur Faria, who had sought directions to BMC
for online hearing of RTI appeals while contending that the civic body was
asking appellants to physically appear and argue before the competent
authority. The bench had asked the BMC to reply to the plea on Tuesday.
After
perusing the reply, the court on Friday observed, “Although the respondent is
willing to hear the petitioner through video conferencing, there is no
statement as to how the BMC proposes to extend opportunity of hearing to other
persons, who have carried appeals under section 19(1) of the Right to
Information Act, 2005 against the orders of rejection of their requests for
information passed by the relevant State Public Information Officers.”
The
court added that the PIL has been instituted not only to safeguard the interest
of the petitioner, but also to ensure that facilities are made available to
other information-seekers like him, who could not appear in-person to prosecute
their appeals before the first appellate authority.
Advocate
Yamuna Parekh for BMC sought two weeks to take instructions and respond to the
query.
The
bench, while granting the same, observed: “We make it clear that within this
period, the competent authority of the BMC shall take appropriate decision for
extending facilities of hearing through the virtual platform so that maximum
number of appellants, who wish to argue their appeals through
video-conferencing, may be covered.”
The
court posted the matter for further hearing on August 14.
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