Kerala CIC appears before House panel

In a rare incident,the Kerala Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and a former state information commissioner appeared before the Privileges and Ethics Committee of the Assembly....

In a rare incident,the Kerala Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and a former state information commissioner appeared before the Privileges and Ethics Committee of the Assembly in connection with an alleged breach of privilege of the House.

Earlier,a Division Bench of the High Court had declined to stay the summons issued by the privileges panel to CIC Palat Mohandas and ex-commissioner P N Vijayakumar on the ground that it was up to the House to decide on its privileges.

A member of the Assembly panel told The Indian Express that Mohandas was adamant on his stand,while Vijayakumar looked rather apologetic. The committee explained to them about the privilege of the Assembly and how the Information Commission had infringed upon those rights. The CIC and the ex-commissioner have agreed on the point that the breach of privilege had occurred as an outcome of the interpretation of the law. However,Mohandas stuck to his guns, the member said. The committee will meet again,most probably on May 6,to decide on whether the commissioners should be censured or not.

The stand-off between the office of the Information Commissioner and the Assembly stemmed from the rejection of a private petition seeking the video tapes of an Assembly speech made in 2005. When the Assembly Information Officer refused to hand over the tapes,the applicant approached the CIC. In its directive,the CIC ordered the Assembly information officer to part with the video tape and pay a fine of Rs 250 for every day until the order was implemented.