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National

Requests of information acceded by CIC

Prakash Kamat

PANAJI: A full bench of the Central Information Commission headed by Chief Central Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah has recently held that while all proceedings before the Parliamentary Committees (PC) are no doubt held secret, it cannot be stretched to mean that every single item of information, held anywhere, that may, now or in future, become part of the proceedings before the PC, or may be required to be produced before the it, should also come under the exemption from disclosure.

This ruling came on June 10 in three second-appeals filed by appellants Manohar Parrikar, Goa Leader of the Opposition (BJP), Mr. Jayanta Kumar Routray, and Mr. Gurbax Singh against the orders of Appellate Authorities of the office of Accountants General of Goa, Orissa and Punjab, respectively.

The above three second-appeals were bunched together and heard by a full bench comprising Central Information Commissioners A. N. Tiwari and Satyananda Mishra apart from Mr. Habibullah. They all had broadly similar requests for disclosure of information which went into the making of an Audit Report — such as audit observations, marginal notes, audit notes and audit memos, etc.

Earlier A.N. Tiwari heard the initial submissions of the parties in the second appeal filed by Mr. Parrikar, and referred the case to be decided by a larger bench, observing that apart from the points brought up by the parties, there were other issues about parliamentary legislative privilege, that needed to be addressed.

The requests for information were denied earlier as they raised issues within Sections 8(1)(c) of the Right To Information(RTI)Act, while the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General(CAG) was confidential.

The CPIOs had also contended that the “intermediary documents” are merely working papers and may not come within the realm of ‘Information' under the RTI Act.

But after seeking the assistance of the Secretary General of Lok Sabha P. D. T. Acharya over what constitutes a parliamentary privilege in this regard, the full bench ruled that the requests for information did not attract Section 8(1)(c) of the RTI Act.

Quoting the Secretary General's observations in its order, “It is doubtful whether the report of the CAG qualifies to be treated as the report of Parliamentary Committee or [as evidence]. Half margins, draft audit notes, etc., do not have any relevance insofar as Parliamentary papers are concerned,” the full bench ruled that disclosure of audit notes, audit paras, marginal notes, etc., could not be said to constitute a breach of privilege of the House.

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