IOA, CWG OC under RTI ambit

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and Organising Committee (OC) of Commonwealth Games-2010 will now have to respond to RTI queries.

The sports ministry on Tuesday asked both the organizations to fulfil various obligations of the Right to Information (RTI) Act and to designate their Central Public Information Officers and appellate authorities as per section 5 of the RTI Act.

The Suresh Kalmadi headed OC and IOA were reluctant to provide information under RTI arguing that both the sports bodies are not public authorities.

"The ministry has sent a communication to IOA and OC in pursuance of the Delhi High Court's order dated January 7, 2010, declaring both entities as public authorities under the RTI Act, 2005," an official release said.

"Both organisations have also been asked to fulfil various obligations of being a public authority, as per section 4 of the RTI Act, including maintaining all their records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner so as to facilitate the right to information under this Act and suo moto disclosure/publishing of information pertaining to IOA/OC, CWG-2010," the sports ministry statement said.