Gujarat HC case and Andhra Pradesh CIC ruling revive debate on disclosure of bureaucrats’ assets

DESPITE the challenges by Arvind Agrawal, a 1984 batch Gujarat cadre IAS, Gujarat High Court has stayed an order of the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) asking the state government to furnish Annual Property Returns (APR) of its senior bureaucrats. The issue would again come up for hearing on December 9, 2010.

Agrawal, vice chairman and MD of Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC), challenged the CIC order in High Court. Principal Information Officer of the state Ashok Dave asked Agrawal two months ago that he must disclose his Annual Property Return as demanded in an RTI query by a journalist.

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Information Commission has recently pronounced a ruling asking the state to reveal assets of IAS officers, a move which was highly applauded by Lok Satta Party president Jayaprakash Narayan who left IAS to become a political activist.

Significantly, the demand for disclosing assets of bureaucrats has become stronger despite RTI’s safeguard of no disclosure of personal information of public servants. Back in November 3, 2009, DoPT initiated a meeting of senior bureaucrats of secretary level to discuss whether bureaucrats’ assets should be disclosed under RTI after they conceded to disclose file notings which civil servants successfully blocked for quite sometime. Whereas politicians need to disclose assets once they fight an election, it’s not mandatory for bureaucrats and Judges at all.
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