PM’s health details can be withheld under RTI Act

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PM RTI Act
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The Central Information Commission (CIC) recently held in Chetan Kothari v Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, DGHS that information on the health of the Prime Minister of India cannot be provided under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, as it is personal in nature and disclosure would be an invasion of privacy. This is in contrast with the practice in the US, where authorities place information about the President’s health in the public domain on an annual basis.

The applicant, Chetan Kothari, filed an RTI application with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare seeking information about the medical and surgical history of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, including information as to the cost of his heart bypass surgery.

The CIC held that information indicating the health and medical history of the present prime minister is classified as sensitive and secret information under the guidelines on review of departmental security instructions issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs in a memorandum on 6 February 2002. However, the commission also held that expenses incurred for the prime minister’s medical treatment should be disclosed, since they are made from the public exchequer.

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The legislative and regulatory update is compiled by Nishith Desai Associates, a Mumbai-based law firm. The authors can be contacted at nishith@nishithdesai.com. Readers should not act on the basis of this information without seeking professional legal advice.

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