Jagan government’s practice of issuing secret GOs on various issues is now becoming a hot topic of discussion. The AP High Court has taken a serious view of this practice, but the Jagan Government is coming up with newer ways to upload blank GOs. Thus, it is trying to keep a lot of critical activities away from the public gaze.

The blank GOs uploaded on the Government website will only have the GO number, but not the content. Thus the general public would not be able to access the content of the GO. The opposition TDP has alleged that the government has uploaded 10 such blank GOs in ten minutes. On August 10 this year, as many as 14 GOs were issued. Of them, 10 were secret GOs, whose contents are not in the public domain. The TDP has also said that the YSRCP government has the dubious distinction of uploading 80 such secret GOs on a single day.

The AP High Court, which took a serious view of this, has asked the government to submit a comprehensive report on the issue of secret GOs by December 28. There is a lot of interest as to what the government will present to the court. The High Court said the people have a right to know the contents of the GO.

Interestingly, such minor details as the transfers and postings of the civil servants too are kept secret. Though the issue came to light in August this year and ever since, the government is citing some pretext or the other to upload blank GOs. Civil rights and governance activists feel that the people have a right to know the contents of the GO and that blocking information is against the very spirit of democracy.