Maintain Record Of Daily Orders, Upload Within 3 Days: Delhi HC To CIC [Read Order]

The Delhi High Court has directed the Central Information Commission to maintain record of its daily orders.

“The functioning of the CIC must be transparent, and it is necessary that a record of daily proceedings be maintained. Even, if the hearing is concluded on a single date, the order sheet maintained on that day should clearly reflect that the hearing is concluded, although the decision may be rendered, subsequently,” Justice Vibhu Bakhru observed.

Hearing a Petition filed by RTI Activist R.K. Jain, the Court refused to accept the CIC’s contention that there was no need to maintain such record as most of the cases are decided on the basis of a single hearing.

It noted that the CIC had, in December last year, filed certain documents which included a proforma of the order sheet. “Attention of this Court has also been drawn to order dated 23.03.2016, which indicates that the learned counsel for the CIC had unequivocally stated that the CIC is willing to maintain the daily order sheets and had prayed for some time to evolve a procedure. Thus, sufficient time has been provided to the CIC to put in place a procedure for recording of order sheets; however, even today the learned counsel is not in a position to inform this Court, the procedure for ensuring recording of order sheets,” it further observed.

The Court, thereafter, directed the CIC to file the order sheet for each hearing and upload it within three days from the date of the hearing. All CIC systems have been directed to be modified accordingly.