The Central Information Commission recently ordered that the Goods and Services Tax Network ( GSTN ), a Company incorporated solely for providing IT backbone to the goods and services tax ( GST ) law, to publish its income and expenditure statement in its official web portal. The CIC also noted that being a public authority, the Company is bound to do so.
The complainant, on Mr. R, K Jain, an RTI Activist, filed an RTI application seeking information on 09 points regarding details and copies of monthly expenses, bills/ statements of GSTN from April, 2014 till the date of providing information, details of the expenditure / purchase made for an amount above Rs. 50,000/- from 01.04.2014 till date, name of the officer from whom the said articles were purchased or services provided, etc. however, the same was not provided by the GSTN officials.
Before the CIC, the respondent argued that the Complainant did not inspect the documents despite several requests to do the same. Furthermore, it was argued that voluminous data was involved and it was not cost effective to disclose the information. The data sought was for almost two and a half years which was voluminous and contained very minor details of the logistics and infrastructural support which was not feasible to be provided.
Allowing the second appeal filed by the complainant, the Information Commissioner Bimal Julka ordered that “The Commission desired that the broad income and expenditure statement prepared by the Public Authority should be posted on its website for perusal by the public at large. Considering the significance and importance of the GST Network, it was essential that all such details should be mandatorily posted on its website so that the public at large was provided correct information as mandated under the RTI Act, 2005.”
“The Commission observed that a voluntary disclosure of all information that ought to be displayed in the public domain should be the rule and members of public who having to seek information should be an exception. An open government, which is the cherished objective of the RTI Act, can be realised only if all public offices comply with proactive disclosure norms. Section 4(2) of the RTI Act mandates every public authority to provide as much information suo-motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including the Internet, so that the public need not resort to the use of RTI Act,” IC said.
