The Supreme Court has directed the Central Information Commission and the State Information Commissions for ensuring proper implementation of the mandate of Section 4 of the Right to Information Act.
The bench comprising of Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha and Justice JB Pardiwala observed that while declaring that all citizens shall have the ‘right to information’ under Section 3 of the Act, the co-relative ‘duty’ in the form of obligation of public authorities is recognized in Section 4.
The court said that n the Public Interest Litigation filed by Kishan Chand Jain, a direction to implement the mandate of Section 4 RTI Act was sought.
As per Section 4 of the RTI Act,statutory obligations of public authorities are listed that includes maintenance of all public records, duly catalogued and indexed for easy accessibility of the information.
It also includes publishing particulars of the organisational structure, functions and duties of officers, procedures that are followed for decision-making, salary structure, budget allocation, publication of facts relating to policies and announcements which includes providing reasons for quasijudicial decisions.
Sub-section (2) mandates the public authority to take steps for providing information under clause (b) of sub-section (1) suo motu and further to disseminate the said information for easy accessibility to the public.
The court observed that the public accountability is a crucial feature that governs the relationship between ‘duty bearers’ and ‘right holders’
“Having examined the Right to Information established by the statute under Section 3 in the context of the obligations of public authorities under Section 4, we are of the opinion that the purpose and object of the statute will be accomplished only if the principle of accountability governs the relationship between ‘right holders’ and ‘duty bearers’. The Central and State Information Commissions have a prominent place, having a statutory recognition under Chapters III and IV of the Act and their powers and functions all enumerated in detail in Section 18 of the Act. We have also noted the special power of ‘Monitoring and Reporting’ conferred on the Central and State Information Commissioners which must be exercised keeping in mind the purpose and object of the Act, i.e., ‘to promote transparency and accountability in working of every public authority’”, the court observed.
Thus the court directed the Central Information Commission and the State Information Commissions to continuously monitor the implementation of the mandate of Section 4 of the Act as also prescribed by the Department of Personnel and Training in its Guidelines and Memorandums issued from time to time. The system needs the concerned authority’s complete attention, followed by strict and continuous monitoring, the bench added.