Many irritants have cropped up in the RTI with visible unwillingness from some states to share information
RTI Act implemented on October 12, 2005 in initial years of its implementation had done wonders not only by
exposing scams and scandals, but also resulted in systemic reforms. However, experience reveals that RTI rules (and not the RTI Act) need important modifications mainly to prevent misuse of the Act and minimising
challenge to CIC verdicts
in courts.
Precious time of Central Information Commission and courts should be saved through notification issued by central government to declare all public-private-partnerships, sports-bodies, cooperative-societies and other such bodies, public-authorities under RTI Act. Land and Building Departments of central and state governments should study all cases of allotment of land or government-accommodations at subsidised rates or lease, and declare all these as public-authorities under RTI Act. For future, land or government-accommodations should be provided at subsidised rates on pre-condition of beneficiaries coming under purview of RTI Act.
Effective steps should be taken to prevent misuse of RTI Act, which will be a boon to genuine information-seekers by drastically reducing pendency at Information Commissions apart from saving man-hours and expenses for both the public-authorities and the petitioners.
Section 27 and 28 of RTI Act give power to Competent Authorities and state-governments to draft their own rules which include fixing of RTI fees and mode of
payment of RTI fees. Several Competent Authorities and states misused their power by having RTI fees as high as rupees 500. Several states fixed RTI fees for filing First Appeals also. However, the Supreme Court in its verdict dated March 20, 2018 on
a petition filed by Common Cause imposed a capping
of Rs 50 to be maximum
RTI fees.
India should be governed with the principle ‘One Nation–One Rule’ in respect of RTI fees and its mode of payment by clubby copying charges of first 20 copied with basis RTI fees of Rs 10 (for Central public-authorities), thus making Rs 50 as uniform RTI fees throughout the country inclusive of charges of first 20 copied pages. Making basic RTI
fees at Rs 50 will largely
prevent misuse of RTI Act just for sake of fun or
publicity. There must not be any fees for filing First or Second Appeals.
Handling a postal order of value Rs 10 costs the postal department about Rs 50 with the cost of handling of postal orders by a public authority and bank clearing even extra. Most public authorities require postal orders in
different names even though DoPT in its various circulars has required postal orders towards RTI payments to be in the name of Accounts Officer only. These RTI stamps should be
conveniently available at all post-offices and counters of public-authorities and other convenient sale-points.
Post-free RTI applications addressed to central public-authorities should be extended to all about 1,60,000 post offices rather than just about 4500 post offices presently. It is not difficult because every post-office, however small it may be, daily sends a post-bag to the Head Post Office with registered post, cash and unsold revenue-articles. This post-bag can carry post-free RTI applications received at the post-office.
Portal for filing online RTI applications should be modified so that RTI
responses and orders of
First Appellate Authorities may also be auto-emailed rather than RTI applicants required to go to the portal for viewing of RTI responses.
DoPT should issue a circular in tune with para 23 of verdict dated November 2, 2012 in the matter “Fruit and Vegetable Union versus Unknown” (CWP 4787 of 2011) which requires ID proof compulsory to be attached with every RTI application, First Appeal and petitions filed with Information Commissions. Already the aspect has been adopted in Odisha apart from Punjab and Haryana.
Only websites uniformly designed by National Informatics Centre (NIC) should be mandatory for all states. This has become
necessary for states like Odisha have made online
filing of RTI applications merely a mockery when
it is compulsory to
download online-filled RTI applications and then send it by post to concerned
department.
Delhi High Court in its order dated August 8, 2018 in WPC 8278 of 2018 in the matter “Anil Dutt Sharma versus Government of NCT Delhi and others” mentioned – This Court is of the prima facie view that the Right To Information Act, 2005, would now override the Delhi Right To Information Act, 2001 as it would occupy the entire legislative field. DRTI Act has lost all relevance with RTI Act in existence.
(The author is a RTI consultant holding Guinness World record for most letters published in newspapers)
