Who appoints the Ministers in Minister of Environment and Forests?
8 Jun, 2013
Background
The appellantreferred to some news item published in a daily newspaper regarding the removal of the then Minister of Environment and Forests. He filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with Prime Minister's Office (PMO) seeking information regarding that news report. The Public Information Officer (PIO) PMO, Cabinet Secretariat and theMinistry of Environment and Forest (MoEF),separately informed the appellant that there was no information available in respect of his queries. The First Appellate Authority (FAA) held that the MoEF had nothing to do with the appointment of the Minister.
View of CIC
The Central Information Commission (CIC) noted that the PIO cannot validate the news item report. The CIC held that under the Constitution of India, the President of India appoints ministers at the sole prerogative of the Prime Minister and it is not for the PIO of one or the other establishments of the Government of India to speculate why a particular Minister is posted to any Ministry. The CIC rejected the appeal stating that none of the public authorities which had handled the RTI application have any information on these queries.
Citation: Mr. Ajay MadhusudanMarathe v. Prime Minister's Office, Ministry of Environment and Forest, Cabinet Secretariat in File No. CIC/SM/A/2012/001898