Telangana shuts sites on the GO to foil litigations

Hyderabad: In a blow to transparency, the Telangana state government’s website where all government orders barring confidential ones were uploaded, was shut down on Wednesday without any reason.

All GOs barring confidential ones were being put in public domain for over a decade to ensure transparency and good governance.

But the GOs’ website (www.goir.telangana.gov.in) was taken down on Wednesday.

On the other hand, Andhra Pradesh’s GO website is functional as usual.

The TS government is already facing criticism for issuing nearly 500 confidential GOs during its 20-month rule.

The government is said to be of the opinion that making all GOs accessible to the public gives them the scope to file cases against the government in courts on its various decisions.

Sources said the issue had figured in last week’s Cabinet meeting where it was felt that giving the general public access to GOs was putting the government in trouble.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is learnt to have questioned the need for putting GOs in public domain.

Open GOs spawned PILs: CMO
Telangana state Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao pointed out that GOs extending Rs 15 lakh financial assistance to CMO official Smita Sabharwal to a fight a legal case against the Outlook magazine, GOs on transferring NTR Stadium land for construction of Telangana Kala Bharathi etc., had landed the government in legal problems after PILs were filed in courts resulting in embarrassment for the government and delay in execution of projects.

The Chief Minister is said to have asked officials to close the GOs’ website and conduct a study on what type of GOs should be put in public domain.

A decision on whether to restore the website or not will be taken based on this report.

However, no one in the government was willing to comment on the issue.

RTI activists say that this is in violation of Section 4 of the RTI Act, which states: “The basic premise of the RTI Act is the concept that the individual citizen is a sovereign in his own right, and is the owner of the government.”

The government is of the view that those who want know the GOs can obtain them by filing RTI queries.

However, the RTI Act states: “It shall be a constant endeavour of every public authority to take steps in accordance with the requirements of clause (b) of Section-1 to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including Internet, as possible so that the public has minimum need to resort to the use of this Act to obtain information.”