Central Information Commission (CIC)
As RGNUL Patiala remains one of several national law universities (NLU) that still do not publish their annual financial statements online, one right to information (RTI) applicant approached the Central Information Commission (CIC) against the law school.
The Bar Council of India (BCI) denied a right to information (RTI) request for the meeting minutes and reasons for its unexpected decision to yet again increase the bar exam fees by another 40 per cent.
The Delhi high court has bizarrely exempted state bar councils from the statutory duty to publish their meeting minutes online, on the ground that some of these minutes may contain third party information of a confidential nature.
The Bar Council of India (BCI) has still not complied with its statutory duty under the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005, more than six weeks after the Central Information Commission (CIC) threatened to impose maximum penalty on BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra, if the BCI continues in its non-compliance of the law.
The Bar Council of India (BCI) has not satisfactorily complied with the Right to Information Act 2005 (RTI Act) provision which requires that it publish all its affairs on its website, held the Central Information Commission (CIC). The CIC said it is inclined to impose maximum penalty on the BCI if it doesn’t comply in a definite amount of time.
The Central Information Commission (CIC) fined the Bar Council of Delhi’s (DBC) secretary Murari Tiwari Rs 25,000 for not complying with its order and for failing to appear before it, reported the PTI.
The CIC found Tiwari “fully responsible” for not furnishing information sought in a Right to Information (RTI) request seeking the total number of cases filed and disposed of against advocates for professional misconduct. The RTI applicant Arun Kumar Aggarwal had filed a complaint before the CIC.
The CIC fined Tiwari for failing “to respond to its repetitive summon orders and for causing delay and obstruction for more than 10 months, without any reasonable cause”. It directed DBC chairman RS Chauhan to recover the penalty amount by deducting Rs 5,000 from Tiwari’s salary for five months.
The CIC also added that “the CPIO appointed is not an officer but a supervisor, who is not competent to take independent decisions while dealing with RTI applications” and asked the DBC chairman “to reconsider the appointment of CPIO in line with other such councils including Bar Council of India”.
Tiwari today disputed Luthra & Luthra litigation partner Vijay Sondhi’s 13 May appointment to the post of secretary at the DBC, as reported by Legally India.
The Supreme Court yesterday stayed its September 2012 order that made it compulsory to appoint retired judges to central and state information commissions under the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005.
Central government prepares to file for review of the Supreme Court's 13 September judgment that said that each RTI information commission should also be staffed by an HC or SC judge [BS]
CIC, none of whose commissioners have a judicial background, had stopped functioning after the judgment and had sought the opinion of attorney general Goolam Vahanvati on various questions of interpretation left unanswered by the court.