HC directs information commission to dispose of RTI

The Calcutta High Court today directed the West Bengal Information Commission to dispose of an RTI application, which sought information on the medical records of former state minister Madan Mitra during his judicial remand in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam.
Justice Debangshu Basak directed the commission to dispose of the application as soon as possible, preferably within four weeks.
An NGO had filed the application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act in 2015 before the State Public Information Officer, seeking the details of Mitra's medical records during his judicial remand.
The petitioner had said Mitra spent a considerable part of his remand in the SSKM hospital here and sought to know the details about his ailments for which he was treated at the state-run medical facility.

Mitra was arrested by the CBI on December 12, 2014 for his alleged complicity in the multi-crore-rupee Saradha chit fund scam. He had obtained bail from the court on September 9, 2016.
The counsel for the NGO, Srikanta Dutta, submitted that they had moved an appeal before the West Bengal Information Commission after the State Public Information Officer (SPIO) failed to dispose of their application within the statutory period of 30 days and an appeal before the first appellate authority also went unanswered.
The NGO chose to move the high court, seeking a direction to the state information commission to dispose of its application, when it did not get any information from it.

The counsel of the commission told the court that the matter was under process and an action-taken report was being prepared by the SPIO, which would be ready soon.