New Delhi: Reminding Municipal Corporation of Delhi that it is 20 years since RTI Act has been enforced, Delhi High Court on Wednesday questioned why MCD had failed to proactively disseminate information relating to its legislative records, proceedings of the house and resolutions online.A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia underlined that Section 4 of Right to Information Act made it compulsory for authorities to act. “The purpose of mandating pu-blic authorities… is apparent — that by publishing such information, the public will have minimum resort to the use of the Act, as the information shall be provided suo motu by the public authorities. No exception in this regard can be granted to any authority, including MCD,” the court observed.
“You want to know the consequences of not adhering to the Act? We will tell you the consequences,” the bench warned the civic body while hearing a public interest litigation by NGO Cen-tre for Youth, Culture, Law and Environment, seeking the uploading of MCD’s legislative records, proceedings of the House, resolutions pas-sed by the standing committees and all other public information on its website in a time-bound manner.Appearing for MCD, standing counsel Tushar Sannu assured the court that corrective measures would be undertaken by the authorities as the “process” to upload the information was “underway at the corporation level”, but it would take some time.“Thanks to you for undertaking this exercise after 20 years. We are so thankful,” retorted the bench. “What process? You are required to upload this information within 120 days and then at regular intervals. What were you doing? This Act was passed in 2005. It is 20 years down the line,” the bench pointed out.It directed MCD to file an affidavit in response to the petition and state what steps were taken to implement the Act for providing information to the public by publishing it.The petitioner told the court that, in response to an RTI application, MCD stated that no such record was updated on its website till now since the work to “update” its website was going on after the unification of the three erstwhile municipal bodies.MCD took a stand that there were no rules or guidelines that governed the publication of its resolutions on its official website as it was governed by Section 86 of Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, the plea told the court. The bench, however, stressed that Section 86 had nothi-ng to do with the dissemination of information and particulars to the public. The court said it formed only a prima facie opinion at this stage and listed the matter in April. The petitioner said the issue concerned millions of people residing in Delhi.
