Is the office of the governor covered under the ambit of the RTI Act?
7 Mar, 2015An application was filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to the office of the governor of Telangana by Munindra Reddy, a resident of Guduru in Nellore district. Vide a reply dated February 24, the office of the governor informed Reddy that the Union government had excluded the governor’s office from the ambit of the RTI Act, 2005. Citing a special leave petition (SLP) pending in the Supreme Court, the letter informed the applicant that till the verdict, the Governor office cannot be deemed to be a public authority as per section 2(h) “public authority” means any authority or body or institution of self-government established or constituted (a) by or under the Constitution; (b) by any other law made by Parliament; (c) by any other law made by State Legislature; (d) by notification issued or order made by the appropriate Government, and includes any- (i) body owned, controlled or substantially financed; (ii) non-Government organization substantially financed, directly or indirectly by funds provided by the appropriate Government; of the RTI Act.
The issue relates to an appeal filed by the Goa Governor against the High Court Judgment. The judgment was reported in this website earlier as - Governor's report to President covered under RTI Read more at: http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/case-law/governors-report-president-covered-under-rti-579#.VPpavXyUe1U A Special Leave Petition was filed by the Goa Raj Bhavan before the Supreme Court of India challenging the judgment of the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court which had ruled that the Goa Governor was a Public Authority and came within the ambit of the RTI Act, 2005. The Special Leave Petition was scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court on the 12th December 2011 and is still pending before the court. A quick look at the national scenario shows that all the other Governor’s offices have been replying to the RTI applications and hence the stand of the Telangana governor office appeared strange especially when even the President’s Office entertains the applications filed under the RTI Act. The mandatory RTI disclosure is also missing from the Raj Bhawan website. Ekkadu Srinivasan Lakshmi Narasimhan has been the Governor of Andhra Pradesh since December 2009 and he assumed office as the Governor of Telangana on June 2, 2014.
Readers may recall that the lieutenant governor office of New Delhi had also taken a flip flop stand on the issue which received a rebuke from the Central Information Commission (CIC). CIC: The people in Delhi have a right to know whether their LG office is public authority or not Read more at: http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/cic-us-198a-delhi-lg-office-asked-inform-and-expla#.VPpYwXyUe1U
For other articles on the issue, please refer to:-
Disclose governor’s monthly report sent to the centre under RTI: HC Read more at: http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/disclose-governor%E2%80%99s-monthly-report-sent-centre-und#.VPpZdnyUe1U
Governor's meetings with people not guided by any rules – RTI reply Read more at: http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/governors-meetings-people-not-guided-any-rules-%E2%80%93-r#.VPpZn3yUe1U
FAA of Raj Bhavan takes on PIO for providing ‘vague’ RTI reply Read more at: http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/faa-raj-bhavan-takes-pio-providing-%E2%80%98vague%E2%80%99-rti-rep#.VPpZy3yUe1U
Is the governor’s report to the centre under the purview of RTI? Read more at: http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/governor%E2%80%99s-report-centre-under-purview-rti-2972#.VPpZ9HyUe1U