Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court has issued
notice to the state information commission on a petition filed
by a senior IAS officer seeking quashing of latter`s order to
provide annual property returns (APRs) details of IAS, IPS and
IFS officers here to an RTI applicant.
Justice H K Rathod also issued notices to the Gujarat
Government and the journalist, who had filed the RTI
application.
The next hearing has been posted to December 9.
In June 2008, journalist Kapil Dave had filed the
application seeking APR details of IAS, IPS and IFS officers
posted in Gujarat from the date of their joining service.
However, it was rejected by the public information
officer of the General Administration Department. Dave had
then approached state chief Information commissioner R N Das.
The Commission, in a landmark order, had asked the
government to furnish the details of APRs of state IAS, IPS
and IFS officers to the journalist.
Arvind Agarwal, an IAS officer currently serving as
Managing Director of Gujarat Industrial Development Corp,
moved the High Court against the order, saying the information
sought was not in the nature of public interest.
In his petition, Agarwal further said such information
squarely fell under exemption as stated in Sections 8 as well
as 7 (9) of the RTI Act.
The petition, further, said the attempt on the part of
RTI applicant was "malicious, highly unreasonable, illegal"
and aimed at "demoralising" officers of the state.
The information in the APRs was personal and the right to
privacy of family members would be adversely affected if such
information was disclosed, Agarwal argued.
As no larger public interest is involved in the issue,
the order of the RTI Commission deserves to be quashed, the
petition said.
PTI
