Gujarat High Court Issues Notice To State Legislative Assembly In PIL Seeking Public Disclosure Of Its Proceedings

The Bench of Justice J. B. Pardiwala and Justice Ilesh J. Vora was hearing the plea filed by a social activists Neeta Hardikar who contended that the State Legislative Assembly is obliged under Right to Information Act to regularly update relevant information on its website in Gujarati and English.

The plea demands that following be disclosed by the Assembly's website:-

1. The proceedings of the Assembly i.e. live and old telecast and transcripts, the papers to be laid, private member's business, zero hour, list of question and their answers, text of debates;
2. Text of Legislations (including subordinate legislations) as introduced, passed, pending, assented, lapsed, withdrawn and negatived by the assembly;
3. Information on the committees of the assembly (house of Committees) summary of their work and reports prepared by them;
4. The rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by the assembly for discharging its functions and
5. Copy of documents that are held by it or under its control. Under the Right to Information laws , the state assembly is bound to disclose on its website in Gujarati and English the proceedings that take place on the house.

The petitioner also submitted that the website of the Parliament and some other state assemblies "have been regularly disclosing details about the house proceedings.

It has been argued that the Gujarat State Assembly has got its website, "but the details are not posted on it the way other state assemblies have been doing."

The Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner also submitted that "it is always open for the respondent to claim privilege if it does not want to disclose any particular information in public interest referred to above."

To this, the Court said,

"We seek the response of the respondent on this writ petition in public interest. Let Notice be issued to the respondent, returnable on 17th February 2021."

Case title - Neeta Dattataraya Hardikar v. Gujarat Lagislative Assembly Secretariat [R/WRIT PETITION (PIL) NO. 170 of 2020]

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