BANGALORE: The Department of Personnel and Administrative reforms (DPAR) and the Karnataka Information Commission (KIC) have ruled that the private unaided engineering colleges do fall under the purview of Right to Information Act (RTI).
In a landmark judgment, the KIC has ordered, “The private unaided engineering colleges are duty bound to furnish information under the RTI Act, as their admission policy and approval thereto is governed by the orders of the government as well as on account of their affiliation to Visvesvaraya Technological University.”
Prof N S Nadigar, retired professor at R V College of Engineering, had sought certain information from RVCE, which, the respondent had denied stating that they do not fall under the purview of RTI Act. However, it was noted that RVCE despite having Information Cell Committee had purposely delayed giving information for one year and two months. No prominent engineering college in Bangalore had displayed any proactive disclosure information under the RTI Act on their website, nor have they mentioned details of public information officer. “We will update the information within a week on our website,” said K N Subramanya of RVCE.