Thaindian News

Panaji, Dec 25 (IANS) A ribbon-wrapped copy of the Right To Information Act (RTI) Act - that’s one Christmas gift Goa Governor S.S. Sidhu might not forget for a long while. Sidhu, who was summoned Wednesday by the Goa State Information Commission (GSIC) for denying information sought under the RTI to social activist Aires Rodrigues, was Saturday given the special gift-wrapped Christmas present.

“I sent him a copy of the RTI Act 2005. In the new year, the people of Goa would like to see Governor Sidhu perform his statutory duty of complying with the provisions of the Right to Information Act in order to ensure transparency and accountability at Raj Bhavan,” Aires told IANS.

“The Raj Bhavan has officially received the copy,” he said.

Sidhu has been issued summons by the registrar of the Goa State Information Commission (GSIC), Meena Naik Goltekar, to be present at the hearing of an appeal slated for Jan 4 at 10.30 a.m.

The summons follows an appeal made to the GSIC by Aires, whose earlier RTI application made to Sidhu was rejected by the governor’s special secretary N. Radhakrishnan, on the claim that “the governor’s office is not a public authority and hence does not come under the purview of the RTI Act”.

In his RTI application of Nov 28, Aires asked for details of the action taken on the complaints he made to the governor against state Advocate General Subodh Kantak. The activist also sought copies of noting sheets and correspondence pertaining to the processing of his complaints against the advocate general.

“The governor himself has become a victim of the unsound legal advice given to him by (the) advocate general (AG) Mr. Subodh Kantak, who is costing the state exchequer over a crore of rupees a year. It was on Kantak’s advice that he has refused to respond to my RTI query on the AG,” Aires said.