When we turn back the pages to look at the government's guidelines and protocols to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, we would certainly come through the government's advice of using the Aarogya Setu App as one of its measures to curb the COVID-19 spread. However, the mobile application has now been surfaced with trouble over its establishment.  

Aarogya Setu App has been rolled out by the Center as the contract tracing mobile application and the Center has been instructing the people to install and use the mobile application in public places and the government has inducted the usage of the application as part of its guidelines in all the phases of the unlocking process and the application has gained major importance across the country. 

However, it has now come to the revelation that the Aarogya Setu App has got birthed without the proper knowledge of the concerned departments at the Center. The development has come to light through the RTI query that was filed to seek the response of who created the application and under what laws it was created. RTI activist Saurav Das had moved his plea to the Chief Information Commission (CIC). 

According to reports, in his plea, Saurav Das had said that the government didn't give him proper information in response to his questions on who created the Aarogya Setu App and after the hearing, the CIC had issued a notice to the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for giving evasive responses to the RTI query on knowing who had created the application. 

The National Informatics Center (NIC), which is the authority that creates official government websites, has asserted in the RTI response that it does not know who had created the application. While the Aarogya Setu app says it was developed by the National Informatics Center and the Information Technology ministry, both have denied knowledge of who created the app in response to the RTI query, which had shocked the nation. 

In its notice, the CIC said that the denial of information by the authorities cannot be accepted and stated that none of the Chief Public Information Officers were able to explain anything regarding who created the app, where are the files, and this is extremely preposterous. The CIC had directed all the concerned departments to appear before the commission on November 24 to give an explanation regarding the evasive responses. 

The reports say that the Commission has also issued a show-cause notice to the Central Public Information Officers (CPIO) in the National E-Governance Division of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the National Informatics Center (NIC). The CIC, during the hearing, had observed that the CPIO and all the concerned authorities had provided evasive responses and submissions and they had failed to attempt to trace the holder of the information in this case. 

The RTI query had been batted to the different courts for over a period of two months and when the query went to the NIC, it had said it doesn't have the file related to the query following which the query was transferred to the National e-Governance Division and it also had said that the information sought is not related to its division. 

The CIC said that the applicant had rightly highlighted that the app has been used by millions across the countries and the Center had carried out extensive campaigns to install the application and as it had a wider reach, the breach of privacy cannot be ruled out completely and the commission had said that there is no information with any of the relevant public authorities on who created the application. The commission had asked the government why the authorities should not face any action for reportedly furnishing an evasive reply to the RTI question.