Central Information Commission, the apex body adjudicating pleas under Right to Information Act, seems to be shying away from making public its first audit conducted by Director General of Audit and Central Revenue which cited a number of anomalies in its functioning.
The audit report mentioned several areas of problem like payment for the parking area allotted to it, wrong deduction of TDS from salaries of staff and consumption of petrol by official vehicles.
The section four of the Right to Information Act makes it mandatory for all government bodies to put such reports on the website or place them in public domain. The CIC in a number of decisions has directed government bodies to strictly adhere to statutes of section four.
In an RTI reply to applicant Vihar Durve, the Commission has claimed that report has been updated on the web site.
"Mr P K Sharma Joint Secretary and Additional Registrar published the information on official web site.
"Yes, information is required to be published as per section 4(1)(b) and section 4(1)(c) of the RTI Act, 2005 is available on our web site www.cic.gov.in. The same is being updated. The link is http://cic.gov.in/Sec-4-Index.htm," Central Public Information Officer M C Sharma had said in the RTI reply.
When the link was cross checked there was no such report on it.
The page only lists provisions of the section four and nothing else.
Surprisingly, the official who sent the reply also had no clue about the report.
When contacted, the CPIO Sharma said he has not seen the website and cannot say anything about it.
He said his reply was based on information given by a different department of the Commission.
Joint Secretary P K Sharma, whose name was mentioned in the reply, said "I don't remember any such thing getting published.