Madras High Court orders disclosure of assets statements of IAS officers under RTI

12th July 2011

A two judge bench of the Madras High Court comprising Justice D.Murugesan
and Justice K.K.Sasidharan has ordered the State Government to disclose the
assets statements of IAS officers sought under the Right to Information act,
2005 (case no. WA 551/2010). This order overturns the ealier single Judge
order of the Madras High Court which upheld the order of the State
Information Commission baring disclosure of assets of IAS officers, on an
RTI application seeking inspection of assets statements of 10 IAS officers
of Tamil Nadu Government.

The RTI application was filed in February 2009 with the Public department,
where the applicant had sought inspection of assets statements of the Chief
Secretary of Tamil Nadu and Secretaries of 9 other departments. He was
refused information citing section 8(1)(j), which gives exemption to
personal information which has no relationship to any public activity or
interest. The appellate authority too upheld this argument.

The applicant then moved the State Information Commission against the PIO's
and the Appellate Authority's decision. The State Information Commission too
upheld that these documents are exempt under section 8(1)(j) of the Act and
that since they are in sealed covers, they cannot be considered as being
“available” with the Public Authority.

The applicant then moved the Madras High Court challenging the State
Information Commission's decision on the grounds that the State Information
Commission is trying to set different yard sticks for IAS and non-IAS
government servants, by earlier ordering that that the assets statements of
Government Servants, who do not belong to IAS cadre, are public documents,
but giving the opposite judgment when the issue was raised with respect to
IAS officers. The applicant had also cited that the CIC has repeatedly
ordered that assets details of Government Servants are to be made public.

Today's order came on appeal against the order of the single judge (case no.
26223 of 2009), who heard the writ petition and dismissed it in February
2010, saying that there is already a procedure to open sealed covers
containing assets statements and hence there is no need to make the assets
statements of IAS officers public.

It is interesting to note that the Karnataka Information Commission, Madhya
Pradesh Information Commission and Punjab Information Commission had also
earlier ordered that assets statements are to be disclosed under RTI.

With this judgment, it is now firmly established that assets details of IAS
officers are completely under the public domain and can be accessed under
the Right to Information act, 2005. A copy of the order is awaited.

The RTI application filed, order of the State Information Commission and
order of the single judge bench of the Madras High Court and other documents
can be downloaded from http://www.box.net/shared/2zkeqxgnqs

For more details please contact

*Madhav – 9840327303*

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