Sonia paid for her treatment, not the government: CIC

mangaloretoday.com/ CNN-IBN

New Delhi, Oct 3: The Central Information Commission (CIC) in its order on May 3, 2012 had made it clear that the Government of India made no expenditure on Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s treatment abroad. Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra while replying to a Right to Information (RTI) query by one Naveen Kumar of Moradabad (Uttar Pradesh) said that Sonia Gandhi paid for her own expenditure and the Government of India did not spend on her treatment.

 

"From the submissions made by the Respondents, it was quite clear that neither any reimbursement for any such expenditure had been claimed by the individual concerned from these public authorities nor any expenditure made in this regard. In other words, till now, the government has incurred no expenditure in this regard," Mishra said in his reply.

Kumar’s RTI plea requesting details of the expenditure on Sonia Gandhi’s treatment in the USA during August-September 2011 was forwarded to the Prime Minister’s office, Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Parliament Affairs, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, National Advisory Council and the Lok Sabha Secretariat. The CIC replied after hearing Kumar and the government representatives.



"In any case, the expenditure made by any individual on her treatment, in India or abroad, is a private information and cannot be the subject matter of an RTI application," Mishra said.

However, the order covers the period between August-September 2011 and not the last three years. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had claimed during his election campaign that the government had spent Rs 1,880 crore on her foreign trips and treatments since 2009.