Congress slams Centre for 'clipping wings' of Information Commissioner

The Congress on Friday slammed the Modi government for taking away the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry from the purview of Information Commissioner M. Sridhar Acharyulu.

Acharyulu had issued an order allowing inspection of the Delhi University's 1978 Bachelors degree records to be made public.

The Congress said that it is vendetta politics and the politics of punishing those who disagree with the government.

An IANS story had revealed that Information Commissioner Acharyulu had slapped a fine of Rs 25,000 on the Delhi University's Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) for rejecting an RTI application seeking Prime Minister Narendra Modi's graduation degree.

"For world's largest proud democracy, this is symptomatic of several ills and as time goes by, if this is not curbed, it can be fatal to our democracy.

"This is the politics of vendetta, politics of fear psychosis, politics of punishment to anyone who disagrees with you and the arrogance of infallibility," said Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

Singhvi further said: "He (Acharyulu) did this statutory duty to pronounce a reasoned order saying that at least the documents and degrees of the Prime Minister can be disclosed."

He said: "The order is appealable, the order is passed in respect of thousands of people like us every day in our favour or against us. We may or may not go in appeal, but the moment it is passed against Narendra Modi, the whole country gets upside down, topsy-turvy," Singhvi added.

--IANS

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