High Court gives Director of Panchayats 8 weeks to act on recommendations
Margao: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has urged the Director of Panchayats to formulate a ‘Record Retention Policy’ to ensure documentary and electronic records of panchayats across the state are preserved.
“We request the Directorate of Panchayats to frame this policy as far as possible within a period of 8 weeks,” stated the court.
The HC made the suggestion while hearing a writ petition filed by petitioner Sharlet Fernandes, panch member of Majorda-Utorda-Calata panchayat, who sought enforcement of directions issued by the Goa State Information Commission regarding an RTI application seeking CCTV footage.
The Information Commissioner had earlier directed the Director of Panchayats to initiate steps to notify a Record Retention Policy for documentary as well as electronic records within its administrative authority.
The petitioner sought enforcement of those directions before the High Court.
The HC said that the Information Commission had issued its direction on the premise that CCTV footage recorded in DVRs gets overwritten within a specific period, resulting in loss of information.
“The grievance of the petitioner is that she is unable to access the CCTV footage of the recordings of the premises where the village panchayat of Majorda is housed, since by the time the information is given by the PIO (panchayat secretary) the information on the hard disk is over written as the information is stored for a period of only 15 days,” it said.
“For the moment, without entering into the correctness of the view taken by the Information Commission or whether the directions are required to be complied with, we request the Director of Panchayats, considering the larger public interest which would be served by the said directions, to formulate Record Retention Policy specifying the duration within which all documentary and electronic records of the panchayats within the state of Goa are required to be retained,” the court stated in its recommendations.
