SUO MOTU Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition has been treated as suo motu petition in public interest after the Single Bench of this Court while hearing S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 8381/2014 was required to refer to the Rajasthan Evaluation Service Rules, 1979 which were not available in the library of the Court. The Single Bench was informed by the counsel for the parties that copy of these Rules is neither available in the open market nor has been uploaded on the website of the concerned department. The Court had also recorded that in other cases as well, the statutory Rules framed by the Governor of Rajasthan for other departments of the Government and public authorities were also neither available in the open market nor on the website of the concerned departments or public authorities. The Court had also been informed that some of these Rules were not even published in official gazette or any other publication making it impossible for the public to get copy of such Rules. While referring to the reply filed on behalf of the State of Rajasthan, learned Advocate General has submitted that various Rules are available on the website of the concerned departments and list of 30 such Rules has been annexed as Annexure -A. He has also drawn our attention to Annexure -B wherein Rules relating to Department of Personnel after 1996 have been uploaded on the website of the Department of Personnel. It is further submitted that amendments made after 1999 in all the Rules have also been uploaded on the concerned website and list of such amendments have been annexed as Annexure -C. Lastly, it is submitted by the learned Advocate General that he is making all efforts to have the Rules on websites for convenience of the public at large and whenever any Rule is enacted and published in official gazette (Rajasthan Rajpatra), the same shall be made available for sale by the Government Press.

(2.) We have heard learned Advocate General for the State of Rajasthan.

(3.) It is noteworthy that as per Sec. 4(1)(b) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (hereinafter referred to as 'the said Act'), every public authority is obliged to publish the Rules, Regulations, Instructions, Manuals and Records held by it, or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions. Sec. 4(2) of the said Act has also made it incumbent on the part of every public authority to take steps in accordance with the requirements of clause (b) of sub -section (1) to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including internet, so that the public have the minimum resort to the use of the Act to obtain information. It is also provided in sub -section (3) of Sec. 4 that for the purposes of sub -section (1), every information shall be disseminated widely and in such form and manner which is easily accessible to the public.