Gujarat HC Issues a Notice to State Assembly Over PIL Seeking Disclosure of Information on Functioning of Gujarat Legislative Assembly

A Bench of Justices Ilesh Vora and JB Pardiwala of Gujarat High Court issued a notice to the State legislative assembly seeking its response on a PIL that prayed to update information related to proceedings in the Legislative Assembly of the State on its website. 

Neeta Dattataraya Hardikar, the petitioner moved to the High Court seeking directions to the Legislative Assembly to update few documents on the website under the Right to Information Act, 2005. These documents should be revealed in the public interest as per the provisions of the RTI Act: he argues.  

Further the petitioner through Senior Advocate Prakash K Jani and advocate BS Soparkar prayed before the court to disclose following to the public: 

a) Live telecasts of Assembly proceedings, telecasts of previous proceedings and transcripts, important papers to be laid, private member's business, zero-hour, list of questions and their answers, the text of debates, 

b) Text of legislations including subordinate legislations 

c) Information on the Committees on the Assembly and summary of their work and reports prepared by them, 

d) The rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records 

e) Copy of documents that are held by it or under its control 

The plea highlighted that these documents should to revealed in the public interest under the RTI Act. The petitioner also remarked that the legislative is free to claim legislative privilege if any of the documents cant be revealed in the public interest.

The court has ordered the Assembly to respond in this matter by February 17, 2021.