BIAL is public authority, says SIC

BIAL is public authority, says SIC
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore: In a landmark judgment, the State Information Commission ruled on Monday that Bangalore International Airport Limited comes under the purview of the Right to Information Act. The judgment is expected to have farreaching effects on other PPP projects in the state.
Acting on a petition referred by the high court, a full Bench of the commission declared BIAL as a public authority as defined by the RTI Act and held it was duty-bound to provide information to citizens.
Chief information commissioner K K Mishra and information commissioners Krishna and K A Thippeswamy reasoned that though BIA was a PPP project partly owned and partly controlled by the state, it was substantially funded by it. This automatically brought it under purview of the Act, they said.
The Bench also directed BIAL to appoint a public information officer to provide information to citizens, Krishna said. BIAL earlier challenged an order of the commission that directed it to provide information on an application by a city resident, Benson Issac. The high court had asked the commission to deliver an order within two weeks.