CIC pulls up Delhi Edu Dept for refusing information under RTI | Kalvimalar - News

CIC pulls up Delhi Edu Dept for refusing information under RTI- 13-Jan-2016

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New Delhi: The Education Department of Delhi Government is using a "selfprepared manual" to deny information to RTI applicants which is the breach of Right to Information Act, the Central Information Commission has held.

The Directorate of Education which comes under the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Government Manish Sisodia, an RTI activist turned a politician, was pulled by the transparency body for refusing information which is in larger public interest.

The case relates to one Yogesh Kumar, who had sought to know from Directorate of Education (South) the number of posts lying vacant in the aided schools of the Delhi Government but no satisfactory response was provided to him.

"The Public Authority denied the information on the basis of a self-prepared manual under section 4(1)(b) of the Right to Information Act, titled as 'Information available in an electronic form'," Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu pointed out in his order.

After perusing the manual, Acharyulu held that the information regarding the number of vacant posts in the schools cannot be considered as restricted or barred to the public as this kind of information needs to be shared with the public which has the right to know the efficiency of schools before admitting their wards.

Issuing a show cause notice to the Central Public Information Officer of the Department, the Information Commissioner said,"the Commission takes it seriously for denying this simple information to the appellant on the basis of a self-prepared manual, which is breaching the spirit of the RTI Act."

"The Commission, therefore, directs the PIO to show cause hy penalty should not be imposed on him for denying information in violation of the RTI Act," he said.

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