Bodies which conduct competitive examinations should change their"old mindset"and get tuned to the RTI Act to disclose information to candidates, the Supreme Court has said. 

A bench of justices R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik turned down the plea of Institute of Chartered Accountants which pleaded that an authority should be appointed under the transparency law to screen application of information seekers in view of increasing number of people approaching under the RTI Act.

"Examining bodies like ICAI should change their old mindset and tune them to the new regime of disclosure of maximum information. Public authorities should realise that in an era of transparency, previous practices of unwarranted secrecy have no longer a place,"the bench said.

"Accountability and prevention of corruption are possible only through transparency. Attaining transparency no doubt would involve additional work with reference to maintaining records and furnishing information,"it said.

The court said that additional workload is not a defence for not maintaining information and the institute can approach the government in this regard.

"Additional workload is not a defence. If there are practical insurmountable difficulties, it is open to examining bodies to bring them to the notice of the government for consideration so that any changes to the Act can be deliberated upon,"the court said.

"As the examining bodies have not been exempted, and as the examination processes of examining bodies have not been exempted, the examining bodies will have to gear themselves to comply with the provisions of the RTI Act,"the court said.

A close look at BCCI's recent history, be it the match-fixing scandal of 2000 or the 2007 World Cup debacle, reveals that it has never seriously engaged itself in identifying and/or sorting the core issues and problems that plague Indian cricket.  All that BCCI has indulged in is making tall promises by appointing committees comprising of former legendary cricketers and thus shooting from their respected shoulders.  Administrators have often furthered their agenda by using iconic players as a potent shield.  BCCI promised a complete overhaul of Indian cricket due to relentless media and public pressure but all was forgotten within a few months and it was business as usual with the introduction of IPL in 2008.

Thereafter the cricket viewing public was made to believe that all is well despite the scandalous IPL gate.  Recently a combination of blatant lust for money which allowed the players to choose club over country, terrible tour scheduling, non-existent bench strength and mass injuries resulted in one of the worst ever defeats for our otherwise numero uno cricket team.  Lucky Dhoni and autocratic BCCI should, in fact, thank Anna Hazare's revolutionary movement which caught the imagination of the nation and did not leave any air time or column space for media to discuss the all pervasive systemic rot in BCCI.  But as we all know the more BCCI changes, the more it remains the same.  Therefore, I know for sure that BCCI, unless forced to, will keep resisting any form of change as maintaining status quo suits them the most.