Supreme Court to decide if governor report is under RTI

Whether a governor can be directed to reveal his or her report sent to the Centre on the prevailing political situation in his state under the Right to Information Act? That’s the issue which the Supreme Court is seized of as it stayed a Bombay High Court order declaring governor of Goa a public authority and he’s liable to disclose the contents of his report in 2007.

A bench headed of Justice Dalveer Bhandari, Justice TS Thakur, and Justice Dipak Misra on Thursday issued notice to the principle secretary to Goa governor and observed that “some important questions of law have been raised and needed to be addressed’’.

“The questions raised in the petition are important and require its consideration’’, the top court added. This order came on a law suit filed by Goa government challenging the HC order and protecting the governor’s office from fall out of the RTI. 

It was a BJP leader Manohar Parrikar who had invoked RTI and sought from the Goa Raj Bhawan a copy of the governor’s report to the Union home minister on the political situation in the state during July 24-August 14, 2007.

The governor secretariat denied his access of this report and he moved the HC that overturned the Goa secretariat’s order rejecting Parrikar’s request.