Direction sought for PM-CARES Fund to reveal money received and other details on its website.
As reported by ANI, A Public Interest Litigation was filed wherein transparency in the context of PM Cares Fund was sought.
In the said fund, petitioner had also sought direction to reveal information under the Right to Information Act, 2005.
It was added in the petition that, anybody that is “owned”, “controlled” or “substantially financed” by the government qualifies as a public authority under the RTI Act.
PM-Cares Fund was government controlled as well as substantially financed.
“The corpus of Rs 10,000 crore has been created by donations largely from the Public Sector Undertakings, Central Ministries and Departments and even the salaries of armed forces personnel, civil servants and members of the judicial entities have been compulsorily donated into the fund. If PM-Cares fund is held to be a public authority it needs to be examined as to whether the public authorities at the highest level could prompt the government agencies, public servants, to contribute to this funds whose details are now sought to be kept opaque.
Further the petitioner also stated that, reluctance in divulging information raises a “profoundly serious apprehension” since the fund had been established for a public cause for combating deadly pandemic.
[Source: ANI]
