'Citizens have given money to PM-CARES, so they have the right to know what has happened to their money.'
The Delhi high court on Friday advanced to December 10 the hearing on pleas to declare the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund a 'State' under the Constitution and a 'public authority' under the Right to Information Act to ensure transparency in its functioning.
'The Central Public Information Officer is not required to furnish information which requires drawing of inteference and/or making of assumption, or to interpret information, or to solve the problem raised by the applicant, or to furnish replies to hypothetical questions. 'The Information sought does not come under the definition of information as defined in Section 2(f) of RTI Act, 2005. The CPIO has no specific information to provide (sic),' it said.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India should be brought under the ambit of the information law, the Law Commission said on Wednesday noting that it falls under the definition of a public authority.
The prisons department had on Thursday issued an order for the premature release of Amarmani Tripathi, citing the state's 2018 policy on remission, since they have completed 16 years of imprisonment.
The Delhi high court on Wednesday dismissed a challenge to the Central Information Commission's order dismissing an RTI appeal seeking the agenda of the Supreme Court collegium's meeting on December 12, 2018, when certain decisions were purportedly taken on elevation of judges to the apex court.
'Earlier in my career DGs were nearly 100 per cent honest.' 'By the time I retired, many DGs have not been honest.' 'One DG asking me to go and meet a home minister whom everybody knew is a corrupt guy.' '
The first five courtrooms of the Supreme Court have become WiFi-enabled, Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud announced on Monday, in a significant step towards the digitisation of the top court.
IPL side Punjab Kings have joined forces with private entity Round Table India (RTI) and crowd funding platform ketto.org to help provide oxygen concentrators to COVID-19-affected patients.
State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and IDFC Bank have filed a petition against the notice, in a last-ditch attempt by the banking system to keep the information confidential. The notice was given to the lenders under Section 11(1) of the RTI Act, seeking third-party disclosure requirements. While the apex court's original directive in 2015 applied to the full report, it was subsequently agreed that not the entire report but only relevant portions, such as those on bad debts and borrowers, would be made public.
"What the RTI Act did was to make available to citizens any information that could be provided, that the government was obliged to provide to a Member of Parliament (MP). In theory, that channel remains open to us," says prominent economist and RTI activist Reetika Khera about how Indian citizens could still have access to information that they want
The Gujarat high court on Monday refused regular bail to Trinamool Congress (TMC) spokesperson Saket Gokhale in a case related to alleged misuse of money collected through crowd-funding.
While the whole world is using good words to describe India, its main opposition leader is claiming on foreign soil that the country has been destroyed and democracy is no longer there while the judiciary and the media are in a bad shape, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra told reporters.
'There appears to be no larger public interest overriding the right to privacy of the donors and donees concerned'
A new law that defines how companies should process users' data came into force with the President giving assent to the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act passed by Parliament in the just-concluded monsoon session. The law arms individuals with greater control over their data while allowing companies to transfer users' data abroad for processing, except to nations and territories restricted by the Centre through notification. It also gives the government power to seek information from firms and issue directions to block content.
A bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao also directed the central bank to review its policy to disclose information relating to banks under RTI, saying "it is duty bound under the law".
"If there is a valid degree of Modi, why Gujarat University is not showing it," Kejriwal asked.
Social activist Anna Hazare on Monday said the proposed Lokayukta Act in Maharashtra on the lines of the Centre's Lokpal legislation will be a "revolutionary" tool to fight against corruption.
Earlier, the high court had permitted the NIA to seek framing of charges in the special court against Gogoi and three of his associates in connection with anti-CAA protests and suspected Maoist links.
Sixteen people in five Jharkhand districts have been killed by a tusker in the past 12 days, with four in a single block of Ranchi district on Tuesday, forest officials said.
Most of those punished were managers across different scales, from Scale 7 (general managers) to Scale 1 (officers). However, at least one bank - Oriental Bank of Commerce - revealed that 17 single-window operators (SWOs), five head cashiers, two clerks, one clerk-cum-cashier, and one peon-cum-housekeeper were among those penalised for staff delinquency. Punishments against these employees included withholding of increment, demotion for one year, and censure under provisions of the bipartite settlement.
Addressing a press conference in Pune, Pawar also responded to a query on Thursday's meeting between industrialist Gautam Adani and NCP chief Sharad Pawar, saying the two know each other and there is nothing wrong if two such persons meet.
In 1985, Balbir Singh Sr had donated his medals and memorabilia to the then SAI Secretary on being told that they would be displayed in a show window at the then proposed National Sports Museum.
Allowing an appeal filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the high court had remanded the matter back to the trial court to conduct a fresh hearing on the question of framing of charge against all the four accused persons including Gogoi.
A bench of Justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal, which extended the protection from arrest to Gogoi till March 3, said it would hear the matter on Friday.
According to the RTI reply, absconding diamantaire Choksi's company Gitanjali Gems tops the list of the defaulters with a whopping amount of Rs 5,492 crore. This is followed by REI Agro with Rs 4,314 crore and Winsome Diamonds with Rs 4,076 crore. Rotomac Global Private Limited has funded advances of Rs 2,850 crore which have been technically written off and Kudos Chemie Ltd with Rs 2,326 crore, Ruchi Soya Industries Limited, now owned by Ramdev's Patanjali, with Rs 2,212 crore and Zoom Developers Pvt Ltd with Rs 2,012 crore being the other companies to default on the payment. Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines figures in the list at number 9, with outstanding of Rs 1943 crore which have been technically written off by the banks.
"Gandhi's disqualification is illegal and the case is also bogus. I am sure that a higher court in Gujarat will do justice to Gandhi," said Raut, whose party is an ally of the Congress in Maharashtra.
Gogoi was the only one whose bail was rejected by the court and he was released after spending 567 days in jail once Special NIA Judge Pranjal Das cleared him along with the three others of all charges.
The Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday raised questions on the genuineness of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's degrees and claimed that they would turn out to be fake if a probe is conducted.
The CIC's directive came while deciding on a plea by Lucknow-based activist Nutan Thakur, who had based her RTI application on some media reports that RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya in a lecture in 2017 had said accounts of some loan defaulters have been sent to banks for resolution.
Unsatiated greed for wealth has facilitated corruption to develop like cancer and the constitutional courts owe a duty to the people of the country to show zero tolerance to corruption and come down heavily against the perpetrators of the crime, the Supreme Court has said.
Shree Jagannath Temple Administration under the state law department, did not respond to the queries of Bolangir-based RTI activist Hemant Panda.
The Sports Ministry has asked Hockey India president Mushtaque Ahmad to step down, declaring that his 2018 election was violative of the national sports code's tenure guidelines.
Opposing the Centre's stand that the PM CARES Fund was not a government fund, a lawyer told the Delhi High Court Wednesday that there was no factor to show that the fund was private in nature.
The Union Cabinet on Thursday decided to withdraw some amendments it had proposed to the Right to Information Act after protests from civil society, which was also backed by United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi. A meeting of the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, decided to withdraw the amendments which had sought to restrict disclosure of file notings only to social and development issues under the transparency law.
Banks operating in India reported fraud of Rs 4.92 trillion as on March 31, 2021, which represents nearly 4.5 per cent of the total bank credit, showed Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, which was sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by Saurabh Pandhare. The data showed 90 banks and financial institutions reported a total of 45,613 cases of loan fraud till March 31, 2021. State Bank of India - the country's largest lender - reported the highest amount of loans as fraud - Rs 78,072 crore as on March 31, 2021.
Observing that the issue concerning the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) is 'not so simple' the high court asked the Centre to file a 'detailed and exhaustive' response in the matter.
In what was seen as a major climbdown, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Sunday reversed her own diktat on the Right to Information Act, whereby she had restricted access to official information about several issues. The reversal followed widespread criticism of the earlier notification issued on June 2 , which, among other things, had even dissallowed information relating to complaints against ministers or notings and endorsements on secretariat files.
The RBI was not party to the decision to demonetize 500 and 1,000-rupee notes, which was taken at the highest level of India's political leadership.
Replying to an RTI query, the PMO said a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has already been formed and its investigation is underway.
