Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has pulled up the State Information Commission (TSIC) for not acting on an appeal filed by an activist after the medical and health department refused to provide information about private hospitals in the state providing free treatment to the poor.
Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar, in his order, observed that “it is not open to a statutory body, which is entrusted with the quasi-judicial function of entertaining such an appeal, to sleep over the matter indefinitely.” The judge directed the TSIC to consider the petitioner’s appeal on merits and dispose it of within four weeks.
City resident M. Srinivas had filed a writ petition against the inaction of the director, medical education, (DME) and the TSIC in providing information.
He had asked the DME four questions under the RTI Act on February 13, 2017, including how many private hospitals were providing free treatment to the poor as per rules and whether or not these hospitals were reporting the details about the free treatment.
The petitioner also sought to know what action was taken against private hospitals which were not providing free treatment.
The DME only acknowledged that private hospitals that enter into an MoU for the reimbursement scheme for government employees were obliged to provide free treatment to white card holders or BPL persons for a minimum of five per cent of the bed strength. The official did not answer the other questions.
Mr Srinivas filed a first appeal with the DME in March 2017, but the material was not furnished.
He sent a second appeal before the TSIC, which issued notices on September 25, 2018 but Mr Srinivas did not receive the data.
