Persons of Indian origin(PIO) have right to information under Act: SC

[sidmis]

PIOs have right to information under Act: SC
as reported by Ajita Singh, NEW DELHI, Sept 5: 2008, The Statesman

Persons of Indian origin (PIO) with the status of Pravasi Bharatiya under
the Overseas Citizens Act will now enjoy the same rights as citizens
of India do, as far as the Right to Information Act is concerned.

The Supreme Court today gave liberty to all overseas Indians to seek
information from any public authority/organisation or institution
under the Right to Information, Act, 2005, saying the right is
available to all persons of Indian origin (PIOs) who have obtained
the status of Pravasi Bharatiya.

The ruling, given by a bench of Justices Mr SB Sinha and Mr Cyriac
Joseph, came about on an appeal petition by an NRI scientist based in
the United States, Dr Kunal Saha, who was denied information by West
Bengal Medical Council on details of the medical treatment given to
his late wife, Dr Anuradha Saha, at a Kolkata hospital, on the ground
that he was not entitled to the same because he was not a citizen of
India. Dr Anuradha died in 1998 allegedly due to wrong dose/therapy
administered to her at the hospital, now called AMRI Hospital.

Dr Saha is a noted AIDS vaccine researcher at the Children's Hospital
and Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He launched his fight
against medical negligence after his wife died in 1998.

Dr Saha had sought from the West Bengal Medical Council details of
the medical treatment given by three doctors ~ Dr Baidyanath Haldar,
Mr Sukumar Mukherjee and Mr Abani Roy Choudhury, as he had filed
cases of "criminal medical negligence" against the three doctors and
the AMRI hospital where his wife was treated before being shifted to
the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai, where she died from TEN (Toxic
Epidermal Necrolysis) syndrome, a rare form of skin allergy in which
the skin keeps peeling off.

Dr Saha had approached the apex court against the Calcutta High Court
order of Justice Mr Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta rejecting Dr Saha's appeal
for removal of Dr Ashok Choudhary from the West Bengal Medical
Council's Disciplinary Committee. The NRI doctor had approached the
HC for removal of Dr Choudhury. The West Bengal Medical Council has
already declared that the three doctors were not to be held
responsible for Dr Anuradha's death.

The Statesman