CHENNAI: The Ministry of Law and Justice, which enacted the Right to Information (RTI) Act, has denied information pertaining to advices or opinions tendered by the ministry on four judgments of different high courts on pay scales of data entry operators working in different ministries.TVLN Mallikarjuna Rao, in his RTI petition, sought information on the Law ministry’s “different” opinions on the pay scales of data entry operators working in different ministries as the Ministry had failed to implement the Fifth Pay Commission’s recommendations.However, he was denied the information as the ministry maintained that the advice tendered was confidential and in fiduciary relationship. Interestingly, as per the Chapter 1 (f) of the RTI Act 2005, information means all opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, log books, contracts, reports, papers, samples and data materials in any electronic form that can be accessed by a public authority.High Court advocate M Radhakrishnan said: “Unless the opinion is against national security or on relations with foreign countries, it can’t be cited as confidential. This is against the spirit of the RTI Act,” he added.Rao said the application was intended to find out the Law Ministry’s opinion over the Mumbai HC judgment in 2008 and judgments given by other high courts relying the said Mumbai High Court judgment over the pay scales of data entry operators working in the Controller General of Defence Accounts.The RTI query will help bring in uniform Fifth Central Pay Commission scales across various departments of the Government of India, he contended. Citing Supreme Court judgments on numerous cases, including G C Ghosh vs Union of India 1992 to minimise the service litigations, the Fifth Pay Commission had recommended that decisions taken in a specific case either by the judiciary or the government should be applied to identical cases without forcing other employees to approach the court for an identical remedy or relief, said Rao. “The Central Public Information Officer of the ministry has denied the information stating that the queries are neither specific nor clear as there is no date and file number in respect of the information sought,” Rao said, adding, “No RTI applicant will be able to provide the file number and date unless it’s uploaded on the website.” Surprisingly, the Ministry which has stated the information as confidential, has suggested that the applicant approach the ministry or department concerned.
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