Next top info officer won’t have any financial powers
OVERSIGHT Centre says that the 2006 delegation of financial powers to the chief information commissioner was inadvertent
NEW DELHI: The next chief information commissioner – as and when he or she is appointed – will not have the authority to clear financial proposals.
The Modi government has discovered that the UPA’s decision to give the chief information commissioner financial powers was a mistake but cannot locate the file in which this decision was taken.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi had last week pointed to the government’s March 11 order giving the commission’s secretary the financial powers, calling the move “a brutal blow to the autonomy” of the CIC.
“The unavoidable conclusion is that this government is setting out to systematically subvert the functioning of RTI act and shield from public scrutiny and accountability,” she said.
A review of the department of personnel & training (DoPT) file, however, indicates this decision was taken after the officers concluded that the 2006 decision was “inadvertent”.
They argued that the DoPT secretary could only delegate his powers to subordinate authority, not the chief information commissioner who was superior to him in rank.
The finance ministry promptly cleared this proposal, indicating that it couldn’t care less since no additional expenditure was involved.
But Gandhi has a point. She argued there was no provision in the Act that either allows the government to take over the commissions functioning in the absence of CIC or recognises the governmentappointed secretary. “Such a post has no mention in the original RTI Act,” she said. Unlike other commissions where the financial powers are vested in its secretary, or member secretary, the Right to Information Act leaves nothing to chance and interpretation.
Section 12 of the RTI Act gives the CIC, powers of “general superintendence, direction and management of the affairs” of the commission and not the commission secretary.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India Act gives similar powers to the SEBI chairman, who is the last word on all matters including financial decisions.
An Election Commission official said the election commissioners too had to clear all major financial proposals after they had been vetted by the financial adviser. There have been occasions when the election commissioners have overruled the financial adviser,” he said.