Legislation be there as only remedy for putting medical-expenses on public-websites
SUBHASH CHANDRA AGRAWAL
It refers to Supreme Court dismissing CIC-verdict allowing disclosure of medical-expenses of individual judges. Significantly it was specifically mentioned in the referred RTI petition that only and only consolidated annual amount of total medical expenses of an individual judge was required without any supporting documents even like medical-bills which directly or indirectly could reveal disease of concerned one. Supreme Court verdict will have far-reaching consequence when other public authorities will also cite Supreme Court verdict for not providing similar information about others.
It is noteworthy that an RTI response had revealed medical allowance claimed by a member of fourth Delhi Legislative Assembly Vipin Sharma till October 2013 as rupees 13193055. There are reports of large-scale misuse of medical-reimbursement by those entitled to claim from public-exchequers. In a country where commoners do not have even basic medical facilities, rules should be amended so that entitled ones may get free medical-facilities only in government hospitals and dispensaries may be at priority level. Another alternative can be governments providing free medi-claim facilities to entitled ones if they wish treatment at private institutions. It will prevent frauds in medical-claims because insurance companies pass medical claims after due investigation but instantly.
In the meanwhile Union government should immediately legislate for compulsorily putting all annual medical-reimbursements of individuals from public-exchequers on website like is for putting travel-details at public-expense. However it may be made clear that only medical expenses may be in public domain without giving any right to citizens to ask for supporting documents of any kind. Earlier resistance was there even in disclosing travel-details also as ‘personal’ details. But ultimately it had to be done through a circular from Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT).
