The CIC has directed the PMO to produce one representative file related to foreign travels of the Prime Minister after the top office refused an RTI applicant access to these documents citing safety concerns
Narendra Modi
New Delhi: The CIC has directed the PMO to produce one representative file related to foreign travels of the Prime Minister after the top office refused an RTI applicant access to these documents citing safety concerns.
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The case relates to Commodore (Retd) Lokesh Batra who had sought details related to the expenditure incurred on foreign travels of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his predecessors, which the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had denied citing sections of the RTI related to security.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had refused the information citing personal safety. Chief Information Commissioner Radha Krishna Mathur has now directed the PMO to peruse the files to ascertain whether there was any security concern in the records on the basis of which information can be denied.
“The Commission observed that without perusal of the file, it cannot be decided that whether the sought for information contains security related information," Mathur said, directing the Ministry to produce one representative file before it. Batra stated before the CIC that the case involves substantive public interest as the bailout amount, reported to be in thousands of crores of rupees, being given to Air India is the money of tax payers.
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