RTI Act to cover file notes

By A Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, July 4 – In a major directive, the State Information Commission has held that notes in files should be treated as information under the Right to Information Act (RTI)-2005 and that an appellant could not be denied the right to access to such information, an official release said. The Commission, while hearing a complaint by Jakir Hussain, Deputy Director, Employment and Vocational Training, said that as an independent judicial commission, it had the right to interpret the RTI Act without getting influenced by Government directives. Besides, the Central Information Commission has already concluded that the RTI Act covered under its purview both files and file-notes.

In this particular case, Hussain, who had sought some information from the Department of Labour and Employment on April 27, 2007, alleged that the information supplied to him was incomplete, wrong and misleading. He also complained that he had not been given copies of file-notes sought by him.

The Commissioner and Secretary of Labour and Employment, which was Hussain’s first appellate authority, had told him that providing copies of file-notes did not come under the purview of the RTI Act. Later, however, the Commissioner and Secretary apprised the Commission that the appellant would be allowed to see any documents including departmental files-notes and also to take copies of those.

After going through the case, the Commission was of the view that file notes must be treated as information under Section 2 (6) of the RTI Act and should be made accessible to the appellant.

The Commission also asked the appellant to submit a list of the information including the list of files and file-notes sought by him to the public information officer concerned. After this, the information officer will make the necessary arrangements for him to have access to the documents and to get copies of those. The whole process must be completed within a month of the verdict dated June 6, 2007, the Commission said.