New Delhi: Who is 'Eeshwar' in whose name top constitutional functionaries and legislators take oath of office? This RTI query stumped the Law Ministry, which said there is no constitutional provision defining the term. RTI-applicant Shradhanand Yogacharya also raised another query, seeking to know the meaning of "Satyameva Jayate", the motto inscribed at the base of the national emblem.
The application, which was addressed to President's Secretariat, was transferred to Home Ministry which forwarded it to the Law Ministry. Failing to get any satisfactory response, Shradhanand took the matter to the Central Information Commission where, during the hearing held through video conferencing, a Law Ministry official told him that they can only provide information which is part of the records.
Central Public Information Officer S K Chitkara also tried to convince the applicant that "Satyamev Jayate" was not part of any Constitutional provision and terms like "truth", "religion", "caste" were not defined in any part of the Constitution hence no information could be provided.
He asked the applicant to understand the expressions in the context of circumstances or based on judicial explanations available in various judgements or law books. Chitkara told Shradhanand that meaning of words like Eeshwar, Satya, Jati, Nyay and Dharma are supposed to be explained by teachers and Acharyas but cannot be asked under the RTI Act where the term "information" is clearly defined under the law.
Intrigued by the debate between the applicant and the CPIO, Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu also chipped in and asked the applicant "Can you define Eeshwar and Truth?" to which he had no answer.
Best efforts by the CPIO and Acharyulu failed to convince Shradhanand, who kept on demanding that the information be furnished to him. Finally rejecting the second appeal as a "useless exercise", Acharyulu said it does not carry any sense from legal and constitutional angle much less under the RTI Act.
"The appellant cannot expect the CPIO to cater to requirements of philosophy or satire or divinity of expressions referred. It is anybody's knowledge that Constitution did not define referred expressions," he said.
Acharyulu said these terms whose meanings have been sought by the RTI applicant have been explained in several judgements of the Supreme Court. "The appellant is free to access those books, judgements, interpretations. The judgements are in public domain. Most of the information is in public domain either in form of books or search-enabled web content. The RTI request neither reflects quest for knowledge nor any purpose except to keep public offices busy doing nothing," he said.
The Information Commissioner said the applicant had caused enormous waste of time as he could not understand the difference between the 'knowledge' he was seeking and the 'information' which alone could be demanded as right under the RTI Act.
"Such applications do not contribute anything for the welfare of the society and the appellant having such big names like Yogacharya's should not file such hollow RTI requests which result in wastage of resources including time," Acharyulu said in his order.
He said, "if the appellant is really interested in knowing the meaning of Satya, Eeshwar, Religion and Caste, he has to approach appropriate Gurus to end darkness, his ignorance, but searching for such answers through RTI is not the way," he said.
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