The Right to Information Act might be aiming to rope in all the high and mighty. However, the UP State Assembly has taken strong exception to a notice issued by the UP RTI Commission.
Cutting across parties, members of the state legislative assembly on Friday unanimously resolved to dismiss the notice under the RTI Act as "breach of privilege".
The query was made by Ramesh Tiwari, a journalist with Bhumika, a monthly.
Tiwari's original query was made to the speaker and secretary of the state Assembly. It sought to know whether a legislator could obtain a government contract in his own name and whether such an act could make him liable to be disqualified from the membership of the assembly.
Since he did not receive any response from the Assembly officials, he approached state RTI Commission. Chief RTI Commissioner Justice M A Khan shot off a notice to the Assembly speaker and secretary .
The matter was taken up during the proceedings of the assembly on Friday when members took serious note of the notice.
While terming the RTI commission's notice as breach of privilege, the House passed a resolution warning the commission.
"The commission has no business to issue notices to us," Assembly Secretary R.P.Pandey told reporters, while adding, "this amounts to outright breach of privilege of the House."
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