The Central Information Commission (CIC) on Thursday instructed the Delhi High Court that the second enchantment of an RTI utility searching for data on the scope of digital surveillance in India can be determined inside eight weeks.
“All efforts will be made to dispose of the pending appeal expeditiously and in any case, a decision will be taken within a period of eight weeks from today,” the counsel representing the CIC instructed the court docket.
The excessive court docket was listening to a plea by Apar Gupta, an advocate and government director of NGO Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), difficult the rejection of his RTI functions searching for statistical data on state-sponsored digital surveillance.
Earlier, Justice Yashwant Verma pulled up the CIC, saying that at current, it has an enormous backlog and is just listening to functions filed in 2019. The court docket stated that within the earlier order, it had requested the CIC to provide a timeframe inside which the enchantment can be determined.
“You’re feeling overloaded? … stated the court docket.
Questioning the declare of pendency earlier than the CIC, the court docket stated, “You are not some big authority which is hearing the cases.” Seeking an acceptable time, the court docket stated, “Don’t tell us about this 2019 roster business.”
In 2018, Gupta filed six RTI functions searching for knowledge associated to interception, surveillance and decryption orders handed by the house ministry underneath the IT Act. In January 2019, the authorities refused to share the knowledge on nationwide safety grounds. In May this 12 months, the CIC requested officers to re-examine the problems, however in August, officers stated the knowledge was not accessible as information are destroyed each six months as per guidelines.
In his petition earlier than the High Court, Gupta stated he filed a second enchantment earlier than the CIC in August to listen to the matter, however has not acquired any response until date. It has been argued within the petition that the knowledge couldn’t have been destroyed throughout the pendency of the RTI proceedings. It additionally argued that the petitioner was solely searching for statistical data which has been offered earlier and which isn’t exempted from disclosure underneath the RTI Act.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
