Bar councils come under RTI net

CIC rejects the plea that bar councils are not 'public authority'

danish

Danish Raza | January 27, 2010


Information Commissioner A N Tiwari
Information Commissioner A N Tiwari

In a recent decision, the CIC has ruled that the Bar Council of India and the state bar councils are covered under the RTI Act. An order to this effect was passed on January 11 by one of the centrals information commissioners, A N Tiwari.

The bar councils argued that they were not public authorities under the meaning of Section 2(h) of the RTI Act since they were established by the Advocates Act, 1961 and were not directly or indirectly funded either by the central government or the state governments.

“The main source of the finance of bar councils was the enrolment fees collected from the applicants and other such fees", argued the councils. They cited a decision of the Maharashtra State Information Commission in which it was held that just as the co-operative society the bar council too was not a public authority.

Rejecting the arguments, the information commissioner ruled that the Advocates Act of 1961 which brought the councils into being was an Act of the parliament and hence they came within the definition of ‘public authority’ under sub-section (b) of Section 2(h) of the RTI Act.

Under the above mentioned sub-section, public authority means any authority or body of self-government established by a law made by the parliament.

“Their plea is that they did not satisfy the requirement of being substantially funded directly or indirectly by the government about which Section 2(h) makes a mention. In a sense, their argument is that unless an entity satisfies all elements of qualifications mentioned in Section 2(h) of the RTI Act, it cannot be defined as a public authority,” said Tiwari.

“Even one of the elements of Section 2 (h) is sufficient for any entity to be characterized as public authority,” he added.

Comments

 

Other News

Free food grains for 81.35 cr beneficiaries for five years

The central government will provide free food grains to about 81.35 crore beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) for a period of five years with effect from January 1, 2024, the cabinet decided on Wednesday. Terming it as a “historic decision”, a

“I wrote ‘Survival at Stake’ to provide food for thought about solutions”

Survival at Stake: How Our Treatment of Animals Is Key to Human Existence By Poorva Joshipura HarperCollins, 328 pages, Rs 499 With science now recognising animal consciousness, intelligence, emotion, and even morality, there must rise an awareness of

‘Bon Voyage’ through the Arctic: Exploring new horizons for India

India`s tryst with trade through the Arctic regions, including the Northern Sea Routes (NSR), has become an impact-making endeavor recently. The Arctic of yore is now a pivot – point of geopolitics, of climate change discussions, and for economic opportunities; 40% of oil and gas reserves said to be

Demystifying Contemporary Finance Theory and other lessons in investment

Investing Decoded: Simple Path To Building A Portfolio In Millions By Anirudh Rathore Penguin India, 320 pages, Rs 499

Deepfake: India to prepare four-point action plan

Deepfake has emerged as a serious threat to democracy and social institutions across the world. Propagation of deepfake content via social media platforms has aggravated this challenge. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has, from time to time, advised social media in

Mumbai traffic: Let’s use some simple math

Two level of roads not enough, BMC to have triple traffic jams through underground junctions There is no shortage of short-sighted traffic experts who believe that creating more vertical space (either above or below the level) in already overcrowded and congested cities will be cou

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter