No information available on Murmu returning †les for reconsideration: RTI
The Rashtrapati Bhavan has said that no information is available on President Droupadi Murmu returning any decision taken by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers for reconsideration.
The case pertains to a petition ¦led by Raj Kapil of Tamil Nadu under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, seeking to know the number of times Ms. Murmu had returned a decision or decisions taken by the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers, the Cabinet, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), Parliament, Union Ministries, and Union agencies.
He also wanted to know the number of times the President had returned for reconsideration a decision taken by a State or Union
Territory Legislature.
Shivendra Chaturvedi, Director, Rashtrapati Bhavan, in his reply, said no such information was available as regards any decision or decisions taken by the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers, the Cabinet, Parliament, the ACC, etc., being returned for reconsideration.
On the ¦les pertaining to States and Union Territories, he said the RTI application was being transferred online to the “Ministry of Home Aairs being the nodal Ministry and custodian of records in the matter”. He added that the petitioner could ¦le an appeal under Section 19(1) of the Act within a month before the O¢cer on Special Duty/Appellate Authority in case he was aggrieved or not satis¦ed with the reply.
Mr. Kapil, a lecturer in criminology, said he was surprised at the response from the Rashtrapati Bhavan since it had neither con¦rmed nor denied the President had returned any decision of the Prime Minister, Council of Ministers, etc., for reconsideration. Even if the Union Home Ministry was the custodian of the ¦les and decisions pertaining to the States and Union Territories, on what basis was the President’s Secretariat not sharing the information requested under the RTI , he wondered.
“Merely saying that no such information is available is an incomplete and
Earlier instance
A similar response was given by the Rashtrapati Bhavan when a student from Chennai sought to know under the RTI Act the number of times the then President Ram Nath Kovind had returned a decision of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers. When the student, Yuvan Mithran, ¦led an appeal before the First Appellate Authority, he received a reply stating that information called for was not available with the President’s Secretariat.
Ms. Murmu was sworn in as the 15th President of India on July 25, 2022.