Vishav Bharti
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, August 31
The State Information Commission (Punjab) has ruled that the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) is bound to make voluntary disclosure of information on its website under the RTI Act. The ruling came on August 22 on an appeal pending since 2011.
After the enactment of the RTI Act, the SGPC was refusing to make voluntary disclosure on one ground or the other. Kuldeep Singh Khaira, a Ludhiana-based activist, had filed an appeal against the SGPC over its failure to make disclosures on its website, something mandatory for a public authority.
In his ruling, State Information Commissioner Avtar Singh Kaler directed the SGPC officials, particularly its secretary, to comply with Section 4 and other provisions (sections 25 and 26) of the RTI Act and post required information on the SGPC website within a year (before August 31, 2020).
In 2011, the SGPC was declared a public authority following Central Information Commission orders.
The commission had said that as per Section 4, the SGPC was bound to maintain records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner that facilitated the RTI. Section 4 also calls for easy access to all records that are appropriate to be computerised.
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