PMO directed to upload criteria for selection of Haj delegation
21 May, 2012
The Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to upload details of the criteria for selection of the annual Haj goodwill delegation to Saudi Arabia and names of the delegation members on its website forthwith and update them every year.
Hearing a second appeal filed by Abdul Rashid Hanjura, a lawyer-cum-social activist from Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, the CIC held that the criteria for selection should have been ideally disclosed suo-motu under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. There are many delagations where the government nominates persons for goodwill visit. By this analogy, the criteria for nominating persons for all such delegations would be liable for disclosure.
It has been alleged that the selection of the delegation is not transparent and only those having political backing were included in the delegation, though it was projected to be a team comprising people from a cross section of the society.