Information is a fundamental right of citizen Supreme Court cannot cite internal rules to deny information It can be denied only if information sought is prohibited under RTI Act itself The Central Information Commission (CIC) has ruled that in a conflict between the Right to Information Act and the internal rules of a Public Authority, the RTI Act must prevail. It would prevail even if the internal rules pertain to the Supreme Court. CIC...
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Court rejects plea for disclosure of Sonia's religion under RTI
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition seeking a direction to the census officer to disclose information on the “religion and faith” of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. A Bench of Justices R.V. Raveendran and A.K. Patnaik dismissed the petition filed by the former DGP of Haryana, P.C. Wadhwa, challenging a judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court that held personal information...
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Why are the erstwhile RTI campaigners so alarmed five years after it became law? Why so many dharnas, rallies, conventions and hunger-strikes all over again? Part of the reason is that the silent revolution that the RTI has spawned needs to be defended from surreptitious alterations and manipulations, and partly because the RTI activists are being threatened, harassed and assaulted by the corrupt and the powerful, often with the connivance...
More »RTI Act being used to dislodge CIC himself
Ironically, the Right to Information (RTI) Act is being used to unseat Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Wajahat Habibullah himself. Using documents got using the Act, Mumbai-based RTI activist Girish Mittal on Monday served a legal notice on the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Ministry of Personnel & Grievances (DoPT) saying that Habibullah, whose resignation is still hanging fire, is being accorded preferential treatment and that he should be relieved...
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KEY TRENDS • A total of 7.55 lakh (755,247) RTI applications were received by the reporting public authorities in 2014-15. This is about 79,000 fewer RTI applications received in 2013-14. The CIC report notes this decline in the number of RTIs received. However almost 90,000 RTI applications were pending decision at the start of the reporting year of 2014-15 *@ • Around 67 percent of men and 54 percent of women interviewed...
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