PHC suspends RTI Commission’s orders

Info on ATH meetings

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday suspended orders of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Right to Information (RTI) Commission, directing the Board of Governors (BoGs) Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad, to provide minutes of all their meetings to a local journalist.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Roohul Amin Khan suspended the orders of the RTI Commission’s chief information commissioner who had directed the BoG of Ayub Teaching Hospital to provide minutes of their all meetings to a journalist.

The court also issued notice to RTI Commission to submit reply in the case before next hearing. The bench passed the directions in a writ petition filed by BoGs of Ayub Teaching Hospital, challenging the orders of RTI Commission. During hearing, the petitioners’ lawyer Zahid Idrees Mufti submitted before the bench that the RTI Commission, on an application of a journalist, directed the BoG to provide all the information required to the journalist.

He submitted that under Section 18 of the RTI Act, the institute cannot provide or make disclosure of the information that causes or damages the policy. Section-18 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa RTI Act 2013 reads, “A public body may refuse a request for information, the disclosure of which would be likely to cause serious prejudice to the deliberative process in a public body by inhibiting the free and frank provision of advice or exchange of views, or cause serious prejudice to the success of a policy through premature disclosure of that policy.”

The lawyer pointed out that it was a policy matter and premature disclosure would harm the policy of the institute. He added that the journalist did not request for specific information as he requested for provision of all the minutes of the BoGs meeting, which is not acceptable even under the RTI law. During the course of hearing, Justice Qaiser Rashid remarked that there should be some limits that could not damage policy or internal affairs of a department.