HC reserves order on Centre's appeals on AG's office under RTI

Delhi High Court today reserved its verdict on appeals filed by the Centre against single judge order which had said that Attorney General of India's (AGI) office is a public authority falling under the ambit of the Right to Information Act.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath reserved the order after the parties concluded their arguments on the appeals filed by the Ministry of Law and Justice.
During the arguments, advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal, said the Supreme Court has held in various judgements that citizens have a right to know what their representatives are doing.

"Are people of the country not entitled to know whether the government has acted on the aid and advice of the Attorney General," Bhushan told the bench.
He argued that AGI's office is created by the Constitution and it is vested with various statutory powers and functions.
Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain argued on the legal aspects in support of the appeals filed by the ministry.

The ministry had filed the appeals against a March 10 last year order of the single judge bench bringing the AGI's office under the ambit of RTI Act as the top law officer performed public functions and his appointment was governed by the Constitution.

In its order, the single judge bench had declared AGI's office as a public authority, saying he performs the functions as are required by virtue of Article 76(2) of the Constitution and had set aside a December 2012 CIC order that AGI is not a public authority.
The court had remanded back to the Central Information
Commission (CIC), the pleas of RTI activists Agarwal and R K Jain, who had sought that the AGI's office be declared a public authority under the transparency law.
The court had directed the AGI to reconsider the RTI application of Jain as his plea for information was denied on the basis of the CIC order that the office of AGI is not a public authority.

The CIC, in its 2012 order, had expressed the opinion that the AGI was only a person and could not be considered as an "authority" and, therefore, fell outside sweep of section 2(h) of the RTI Act. Section 2(h) of the Act defines 'public authority'.
While setting aside the CIC order, the single judge had noted that the expression 'authority' under the RTI Act would include all persons or bodies that have been conferred power to perform functions entrusted to them and those performing advisory functions cannot be excluded.