The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Can Samal’s report be obtained under RTI Act

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 24, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Can Samal’s report be obtained under RTI Act

Ravi Reddy

“The report that caused ripples was just a press statement and had no official sanctity”

HYDERABAD: Officials in the State Vigilance Commission seem to have been caught in the proverbial Catch 22 situation over the controversial Samal report.

Whether a copy of this ‘report’ can be obtained under Right to Information (RTI) Act still remains a million-dollar question.

After the 56-page report was released to the media by former Vigilance Commissioner R.C. Samal, soon after demitting office on September 7, the Vigilance Commission received two petitions under the Act seeking copies of the ‘report’.

Confirming that a couple of petitioners had sought the copies of the report under the RTI Act, a senior Vigilance Commission official said: “As per the Act, we have to accept every petition and we have done so in these two cases also.” While Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy himself admitted that Mr. Samal had not submitted any annual report to the Government, sources said the report that caused ripples was just a press statement and had no “official sanctity.”

Interestingly, officials are indeed in a dilemma on whether or not to classify the report as ‘official’.

A section of officials argue that it cannot be construed as an official report, since Mr. Samal has not submitted it to the Government.

Official document

The other argument is that even if it had not been submitted to the Government, the mere preparation of the report by the Vigilance Commissioner should be treated as an official document.

That whether Mr. Samal had ‘leaked’ the complete report verbatim or parts of it remains a puzzle.

Officials in the State Information Commission (SIC), however, felt that a copy of such a report could be given only if it was ‘official’.

“We have not received any request so far from any individual,” they said.

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