Information sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act may not be released henceforth without scrutiny by the secretarial officials of the departments concerned.
Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar issued an unofficial note to this effect a few days ago, asking all Special Chief Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, and Secretaries to the government to instruct the Public Information Officers appointed under the RTI Act to obtain their orders before furnishing the information to the applicant concerned.
It has come to the notice of the Chief Secretary that the State public information officers in certain administrative units or offices are furnishing information to the applicants in a routine manner without proper verification of records, the note observed.
