Aarogya Setu RTI Row: CIC Drops Show Cause Notice To CPIOs, Issues Advisory To Ensure That The Website is Up-to-date With All Info

The Central Information Commission has dropped the show cause notices issued to the Central Public Information Officers of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, National Informatics Centre and National E-Governance Division in connection to the Aarogya Setu RTI case. The Commission has issued an advisory u/s 25 of the RTI Act, 2005 to the Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to ensure that the Aarogya Setu website is robust and maintained uptodate at all times so as to be able to satisfy the citizens queries on the subject without having to resort to filing of RTI applications and in this manner promote suo moto disclosure of information. While disposing of the complaint filed by independent journalist Saurav Das, the Commission observed, "After the showcause notice was issued the CPIOs made all possible efforts and coordinated with the concerned record holders to provide a proper explanation…from the above explanation it is also clear that there was no malafide intent on the part of the CPIOs, rather, they failed to provide a pointwise reply to the applicant due to the data being available in a scattered manner and due to the fact that proper co-ordination among all the concerned agencies was not undertaken before appearing for the hearing." The CIC on 27 October had passed a scathing remark against the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology and National Informatics Centre for failing to answer who had created the Aarogya Setu app, calling it as "extremely preposterous".