-The Hindu The Union Law and Justice Ministry has decided to challenge the Central Information Commission (CIC) order directing it to disclose the 2007 advice tendered to A. Raja by the then Solicitor- General, Goolam E. Vahanvati. The first mention of the advice was by Mr. Raja himself — in a letter the former Telecom Minister wrote to the Prime Minister on December 26, 2007. In the letter, which was in response...

The Central Information Commission (CIC) in New Delhi has asked the Rajasthan High Court to revisit a number of provisions framed by it pertaining to the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The commission passed the order in response to an appeal by a Mumbai-based RTI activist, Sunil Ahya. Ahya sought to know the reasons why the Rajasthan HC framed certain rules under the Rajasthan Right to Information (High Court and Subordinate...

Appellants in quasi-judicial bodies normally find it difficult to track the status of their applications. The Central Information Commission has found a way out to help appellants track status of their applications. The transparency watchdog has decided to list status of all pending cases on its website to help the applicants find the reasons for why their appeal was not taken up while those of others were considered. There had been instances...

-The Times of India   With complaints of arbitrariness in hearing of cases piling up, the Central Information Commission last week began listing out pending cases before each commissioner on its website. Cases pending before chief information commissioner Satyananda Mishra and information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi have already been uploaded while the other commissioners are likely to follow soon. This is the first time that an information commission has displayed at least a...

-The Times of India   The AP High Court was pulled up by the Central Information Commission (CIC) for its failure to adhere to the RTI Act. Nine other high courts besides AP's have been given three months time to get their act right. The CIC was reacting to a complaint filed by Hyderabad-based RTI activist C J Karira and Mani Ram Sharma of Rajasthan between December 2009 and March 2010. The complainants...