The Delhi high court on Friday ruled that the central information commission (CIC) was exceeding its powers by constituting committees including members other than information commissioners. The court also said that the CIC could summon the officials of a public authority only for the purposes of giving evidence—oral or written or for producing any document.

RTI applicant Sarabjit Roy had approached the CIC regarding the poor implementation of section 4 by the Delhi development authority (DDA). In September last year, the CIC set up a committee whose job was to ascertain if all the departments of the DDA were RTI compliant. Sujata Chaturvedi, director, union ministry of urban development, Dunu Roy of Hazards Centre, an NGO, and Pankaj KP Shreyaskar, joint registrar of the CIC, were the members of the enquiry committee.

The court quashed the information commission’s order appointing the committee.

“This is a case where the central information commission and chief information commissioner have travelled beyond their boundaries of power and have thereby transgressed the provisions of the very Act which created them,” said a division bench of Justices B D Ahmed and Veena Birbal.

The CIC had also summoned the DDA vice- chairman for a hearing in this case. “The Vice-Chairman, DDA was not summoned for either giving oral evidence or written evidence or to produce any document or things in his possession. He was directed to be present for other reason; that power is not there with the CIC,” the court said.

“No adverse inference could have been drawn for the absence of vice-chairman, DDA,” it added.