Skip to main content

Cabinet Secretariat can't deny unclassified information under RTI Act, rules Chief Information Commission

The Central Information Commission (CIC), the Central right to information (RTI) watchdog, has ruled that the Cabinet Secretariat “cannot deny access” under the RTI Act to “the items on the agenda placed before the Union Cabinet after a meeting is over”.
In a ruling on an RTI plea by well-known RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), the CIC has also advised the Cabinet Secretariat to “put in place” a mechanism to monitor departments and ministries for their compliance with the requirement of sending monthly reports of work done by them to it.
The order further says that it is “advisable” for Ministries and Departments to upload the ‘unclassified portions’ of their monthly reports to Cabinet Secretariat on their respective websites.
Nayak, in an email alert, says that it has been the “general practice” of the Union government to issue press releases on the decisions taken by the Cabinet after each meeting, which are disclose are uploaded on the Press Information Bureau (PIB) website.
“However”, Nayak says, “The entire agenda placed before the Union Cabinet for each meeting is never disclosed proactively, despite the RTI Act being in place for more than a decade.”
Nayak submitted an RTI application for the agenda items discussed by the NDA Cabinet from August 2014 onwards. The Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) rejected the request invoking Section 8(1)(i) of the RTI Act relating to Cabinet confidentiality.
The First Appellate Authority (FAA) upheld the order stating that it was up to the concerned Ministries to take the call about whether the matter discussed by the Cabinet was decided upon and the matter was complete or over. However, the CIC ruled in favour of access to information.
In 2004-05, thanks to intensive campaign by activists, Cabinet papers were allowed to be disclosed under the RTI Act in India subject to certain restrictions such as completion of the decision-making process and non-applicability of other exemptions listed in Section 8(1) of the Act.
“In other countries like the UK, Canada and Australia, Cabinet papers are not disclosed to the public unless they are 20-30 years old”, Nayak says, underlining, “The Indian model is a major departure from this trend.”
However, he regrets, “Nevertheless, the proceedings of the Cabinet in India continue to remain under wraps, except for the decisions that the Government elects to announce. The ‘need to know’ principle continues to rule at the highest level of the executive.”
“The situation is the same at the level of most State Governments. Transparency applies not only to panchayats, municipalities and the district administration but also to the highest decision-making bodies in the States and at the Centre”, he adds.
Hoping that the CIC decision will prove to be a panacea to the "policy paralysis" in governments that often gets blamed on RTI, Nayak says, “If the monthly reporting system is complied with and strengthened, the symptoms of ‘policy paralysis’ can be detected early on and correctives applied in a timely manner.”
“If similar reporting systems exist at the level of the States, RTI users may engage with the departments to make such reports public. If such systems do not exist they may advocate for the adoption of such reporting systems”, he adds.

Comments

TRENDING

Trump’s research cuts 'may mean' advantage China: But will India leverage global brain drain to its advantage?

When I heard from a couple of NRI professionals—currently on work visas and engaged in research projects at American universities—that one of President Donald Trump's major policy thrusts was to cut federal funding to the country's top educational institutions, I was instantly reminded of what Prof. Kaushik Basu had said while delivering a lecture in Ahmedabad.

How to turn India's e-waste problem, third largest, into opportunity? Simple: Offer industry incentives!

How should one interpret a major problem that may be bogging down a private consultant while preparing an industry-friendly report on a situation that adversely impacts society—especially when the consultant sees little possibility of progress in the supposed desired direction?

How the middle classes are returning to the BJP fold, be it Delhi or Gujarat: Mahakumbh, Sitharaman's budget

Whatever reasons may be offered for the Aam Aadmi Party's defeat in Delhi—whether it was the BJP's promises of more freebies than AAP, the shedding of ultra-nationalist slogans, or the successful demolition of Arvind Kejriwal's "Mr. Clean" image—my recent interaction with a group of middle-class individuals highlighted a notable trend. Those who had just begun to sit on the fence were now once again returning to the BJP fold.

Mystical, mysterious, nature's marvel? Truth behind Gujarat’s so-called disappearing temple

I was a little surprised to read a story in Business Today, a publication that should have nothing to do with religion or spirituality, let alone superstition. Carried as one of the choices by Google News, whose algorithm decides which stories to feature, the story attempts to describe a natural phenomenon using terms such as "mysterious," "mystical," "marvel of nature," and "intriguing."

Google powered AI refuses to correct grammar of a 'balanced' piece on Trump sending chained immigrants to India!

This is a continuation of my blog on how, while the start-up-developed AI app DeepSeek is being criticized for consistently rejecting content related to China or Maoism, there appears to be no mention in Western media about why another app, developed by the powerful Google, Gemini, remains silent on Indian political issues.  

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

  The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual.  I don't know who owns this site, for there is nothing on it in the About Us link. It merely says, the Nashik Corporation  site   "is an educational and news website of the municipal corporation. Today, education and payment of tax are completely online." It goes on to add, "So we provide some of the latest information about Property Tax, Water Tax, Marriage Certificate, Caste Certificate, etc. So all taxpayer can get all information of their municipal in a single place.some facts about legal and financial issues that different city corporations face, but I was least interested in them."  Surely, this didn't intere...

5% poor in India? Union govt claim debunked, '26.4% of population below poverty line'

A recent paper, referring to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23 of the Government of India (GoI), has debunked the official claim that poverty has substantially declined. Titled "Poverty in India: The Rangarajan Method and the 2022–23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey", the paper —authored by scholars CA Sethu, LT Abhinav Surya, and CA Ruthu—states that "more than a quarter of India’s population falls below the poverty line."

World Hijab Day? Ex-Muslim women observe Feb 1 as No Hijab Day, insist: 'Put it on a Man'

I didn't know that there could ever be a thing as World Hijab Day until I received an email alert from Maryam Namazie of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB), stating that several ex-Muslim women's groups had observed the same day—February 1—as No Hijab Day! According to Namazie, the day "was created on February 1 as a direct response to World Hijab Day" to "illuminate the coercive and oppressive realities of the hijab as a pillar of sex apartheid and a war on women."

Why burn Manusmriti? Why not preserve it to demonstrate, display historicity of casteism?

In a significant Facebook post, Rana Singh, former associate professor of English at Patna University, has revealed something that few seem to know. Titled "The Shudras in Manusmriti", Singh says,  because Manusmriti is discussed so often, he thought of reading it himself. “This book likely dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, and the presence of contradictory statements suggests that it is not the work of a single author,” he says in his Facebook post in Hindi, written in 2022 and recently reshared.