Suo Motu Disclosure under RTI Act - Government disobeys Government
AS per the Right to Information Act, 2005, every Public Authority is required to publish within one hundred and twenty days from the enactment of this Act:
1. the particulars of its organisation, functions and duties;
2. the powers and duties of its officers and employees;
3. the procedure followed in the decision making process, including channels of supervision and accountability;
4. the norms set by it for the discharge of its functions;
5. the rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions;
6. a statement of the categories of documents that are held by it or under its control;
7. the particulars of any arrangement that exists for consultation with, or representation by, the members of the public in relation to the formulation of its policy or implementation thereof;
8. a statement of the boards, councils, committees and other bodies consisting of two or more persons constituted as its part or for the purpose of its advice, and as to whether meetings of those boards, councils, committees and other bodies are open to the public, or the minutes of such meetings are accessible for public;
9. a directory of its officers and employees;
10. the monthly remuneration received by each of its officers and employees, including the system of compensation as provided in its regulations;
11. the budget allocated to each of its agency, indicating the particulars of all plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements made;
12. the manner of execution of subsidy programmes, including the amounts allocated and the details of beneficiaries of such programmes;
13. particulars of recipients of concessions, permits or authorisations granted by it;
14. details in respect of the information, available to or held by it, reduced in an electronic form;
15. the particulars of facilities available to citizens for obtaining information, including the working hours of a library or reading room, if maintained for public use;
16. the names, designations and other particulars of the Public Information Officers;
17. such other information as may be prescribed and thereafter update these publications every year;
Apart from these, the Act stipulated that, "It shall be a constant endeavour of every public authority to take steps in accordance with the requirements of clause (b) of sub-section (1) to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including internet, so that the public have minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information."
The Act is now nine years old and even now you don't find this information on the web sites of the Government Departments.
The DoPT has been repeatedly issuing Office Memoranda asking the Government departments to comply with the statutory requirement and the helpless DoPT has found that most of the Government Departments are violating this law.
And the DoPT has sent its third request to all the Departments. Who will bother?
Neither CBEC nor CBDT has published this information. Even Judicial Bodies like CESTAT and ITAT are in the august company of CBDT and CBEC in not publishing this information.
Just last week, the Madras High Court held that an information seeker under the RTI Act has to show why he wants the information. The High Court observed,
"the "right" must be coupled with an object or purpose to be achieved. Such object and purpose must, undoubtedly, have a legal basis or be legally sustainable and enforceable. It cannot be construed that a request or query made 'simpliciter', will fall under the definition of "right to information". The "right" must emanate from legally sustainable claim. There is a difference between the "right to information" and the "right to seek information". ...
a person who seeks information under the RTI Act, must show that the information sought for is either for his personal interest or for a public interest.”