Two key economic regulators of the country -- Finance Ministry and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) -- do not have any information about the the consumption of unaccounted gold in the country.
The RBI and the Finance Ministry have given a sworn affidavit before the Central Information Commission (CIC) that they do not have any information about the illegal gold sale in the country.
The affidavits were issued on the direction by the Information Commissioner Deepak Sandhu who asked them to file a sworn affidavit that they do not have any information about the consumption of unaccounted gold in the country.
The direction of the transparency panel comes on an RTI application by activist SC Agrawal who sought to know sale and consumption of unaccounted gold in the country and related issues.
The application filed before the Department of Revenue was transferred to a number of authorities within the Finance Ministry with each of them claiming that they do not have any information on the issue.
No reply was furnished to the applicant.
When the matter came before the CIC, Information Commissioner Deepak Sandhu directed the Finance Ministry, nodal ministry in such affairs, to file a sworn affidavit that no information was held by it.