Should details of advertisements issued by the government be uploaded on the DA&VP site?
28 Feb, 2013Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MI&B) and Directorate of Advertising & Visual Publicity (DA&VP) seeking to know the details of all the advertisements issued by the government in various newspapers on the eve of the National Integration Day. The Public Information Officer (PIO) provided the total list of advertisements published, he however did not divulge any detail about the newspapers or the cost reimbursed to such news papers.
Proceedings
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the respondent submitted a statement containing the list of all the newspapers to which advertisements had been issued on this occasion across the country. A copy of the list was also handed over to the appellant during the hearing. The appellant complained that although the total cost of the advertisement is shown in this statement, it did not show the specific amount paid to each newspaper.
View of CIC
The Commission directed the PIO to provide the data regarding the amount paid to each newspaper for the advertisements. The CIC further held that if the information is lengthy, it should be provided in the form of a CD. The Commission also held that such information should be regularly uploaded in the website of the DA&VP soon after the issue of the advertisements for the information of the public so that there would be no need to seek such information through RTI.
Citation: Mr. Aseem Takyar v. Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Directorate of Advertising & Visual Publicity in File No. CIC/SM/A/2012/001194
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2013/CIC/1082
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission