Teesha –
The Gujarat Legislative Assembly opposed a PIL seeking live telecast of its proceedings and sharing of other documents online, on the grounds that it is at the discretion of the Assembly to decide what information deems fit to be published.
On June 8, during a hearing in the Gujarat High Court, the Assembly Secretariat told a division bench of Justices RM Chhaya and Nirzar S Desai that, as per the RTI Act, there is no legal obligation on the part of the Assembly to disclose and regularly update its proceedings as sought in the PIL filed by Neeta Hardikar.
The PIL sought the Court’s direction to the Assembly Secretariat to disclose and regularly update live and old telecasts and transcripts of its proceedings in Gujarati and English, on its website. Further it also asked for documents pertaining to resolutions, Zero Hour, list of questions, texts of debates etc.
The Assembly in its reply submitted an affidavit stating, “The respondent has the privilege to control and regulate the publication of its proceedings and document and the source of the same is found in the second part of Article 194 (3) of Constitution, Public authority is not legally obliged to provide any information that is covered by exemptions under section 8 of the Right to Information Act. It is the discretion of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly to determine what information it deems fit to be published.”
Article 194(2) confers unfettered absolute immunity and provides ancillary privileges to the members of any House of the Legislature for anything said in Legislature.
Furthermore, the Assembly clarified that certain information is already provided on the new website, and various important documents are uploaded in both English and Gujarati under the “Notice Section.”