Petition filed in Delhi HC demanding declaration of AG office as public authority
24 Feb, 2013The order of the Central Information Commission (CIC) dated Oct 12, 2012 whereby the CIC had rejected a request seeking certain information from the office of Attorney General of India (AGI) has been challenged in the Delhi High Court. Information about advice given regarding 2 G spectrum allotment was sought through the RTI application.
The CIC order was presented at the following link at http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/ag-%E2%80%98public-authority%E2%80%99-right-information-act-2915. The case law is titled “Is the AG a ‘public authority’ as per the Right to Information Act”?
A critique of the CIC order was presented in the article titled “A second look at the CIC order regarding Attorney General”. We had predicted that a petition is likely to be filed with the High Court. Link - http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/second-look-cic-order-regarding-attorney-general-2918
Now, a petition has been filed in the Delhi High Court by RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal demanding to declare the office of the Attorney General of India as a public authority falling under the definition of 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 Right to Information Act, 2005. Advocate Prashant Bhushan filed the plea for SC Agarwal and pleaded "Authorities established under any law or under any notification are covered by the definition of public authority. As far as law officers of the government are concerned, their office being established under appropriate notification, are all public authorities under the RTI Act”.
The petition shall come up for hearing Feb 26.