The Appellant Dr. Farid Malik filed the appeal before Pakistan Information Commission against Prime Minister Secretariat with request for the provision of Copy of notification of the Search Committee dated March 07, 2019 to be headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Copy of proposed notification of the Search Committee to be headed by Minister of Science and Technology moved after exclusion of Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, Copy of the notification of the Search Committee dated October 02, 2019 to be headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Complete minutes of the meeting of the Search Committee held on December 30, 2019 together with attendance record.
Pakistan Information Commission has dismissed this appeal because the request for information to the public body is not filed under the Right of Access to Information Act 2017. Moreover, the information mentioned in the appeal was not requested from the Public office.
The commission in this order has observed that the application addressed to the Principal Secretary of the Prime Minister is not a request for any information or record, perhaps a protest and complaint in the matter of the appointment of the Co-ordinator General, COMSTECH. Section 2(xi) of the Act has defined the “record”, means a request for access to information and includes a request for access to a specific record. Since no record or information has been sought, general or specific, nor drafted under the Right of Access to Information Act, 2017, the application therefore will not be considered as an information request under the Act.
According to the spirit of the Act “information” means information based on record. The general query does not constitute a request under the Act.