What is
RTI?
What sort of right is RTI?
Who is barred from asking RTI Question?
Can
information about third party be asked under this act?
Which
are all the entities bound to reply under RTI?
To whom I should address? And how?
Should
we state the reason for asking information under RTI?
What is
the next course of RTI Application not pertaining to the
authority to whom it was sent?
The information must be provided within thirty days of
receipt of the application by the concerned department and
within 48 hours if it concerns life or liberty of a person.
Not only you can ask information under this act, you can
inspect the documents, records and also can take photo copies of
the documents / records with the amount of fees prescribed under
this act. You can take samples from the material by paying the
prescribed fee.
If extra fee is solicited by a PIO for providing information
other than the prescribed fee then the applicant must be
intimated in writing with calculation details of how the figure
was arrived at. The fee is not applicable if the same is
intimated after the expiry of the prescribed time and also to
the people living below poverty line for which they must provide
a certificate from the concerned government authority.
Right to Information Act is an
act to empower the citizens of a country to seek information
held by the government. In our country, the RTI was enacted on
the year 2005. The aim of the act is to make the functioning of
the government as transparent as possible. It also enables the
citizens to know how the taxpayers’ money is spent. Any citizen
with no exemption can seek information under this act.
What sort of right is RTI?
RTI is a fundamental right
guaranteed by the Constitution of India. It comes under Article
19 (1) (a) of the Constitution which reads as follows:
19. Protection of certain rights
regarding freedom of speech etc
- All citizens shall have the right
(a)to freedom of speech and
expression;
Who is barred from asking RTI Question?
The RTI Act says that ‘any
citizen’ of this country can use RTI to get information. No one
has been expressly excluded by the act from using this act i.e.,
the RTI act does not specifically mention that these people are
barred from using this act. Even if you a government servant
you can ask questions under this act. It is generally good not
to mention your designation or place of working. Instead give
your address of residence.
No. If the personal information
you seek for does not relate to public activity or interest or
if the information sought for intrudes into the privacy (again
privacy too is a fundamental right) of a person, it cannot be
disclosed under this act. For example, ‘Annual Confidential
Reports’ of an employee cannot be disclosed under this act. But
if you are of an opinion such that the person information you
ask for serves a large public interest, you must satisfy the PIO
or Appellate Authority or the Information Commission as to how
the information do so.
According to this act, “third
party means a person other than the citizen making a request for
information and includes a public authority”. Regarding
disclosure of information relating to or provided by the third
party, the act under section 11 stipulates following conditions:
The PIO must give a written
notice to the third party (about whom the question is being
asked) within five days of receipt of the application
The PIO must in his written notice mention that he intends to disclose the information or a part of it and ask the third party to make submission either orally or in writhing whether the information sought for may be disclosed or not
The PIO must in his written notice mention that he intends to disclose the information or a part of it and ask the third party to make submission either orally or in writhing whether the information sought for may be disclosed or not
The PIO while taking decision
regarding disclosure of third party information must take into
consideration the submission of the third party.
The PIO may disclose if the public interest in disclosure outweighs in importance any possible harm or injury to the interests of such third party except in the case of trade or commercial secrets protected by law.
The PIO may disclose if the public interest in disclosure outweighs in importance any possible harm or injury to the interests of such third party except in the case of trade or commercial secrets protected by law.
No. You can your RTI
application in English or Hindi or the official language of your
area. If a person is illiterate, he can approach the PIO of the
office (from which he wants information) and orally tell him the
RTI question and PIO must help him in all reasonable means to
make his oral question into writing. As far as possible, the
RTI request may be in the form of questions which are precise
and concise instead of vague lengthy paragraphs to get the exact
information you need. It is also a good method to send a RTI
application either in a Speed Post or Registered Post with
acknowledgement due so that you may be sure that the RTI
application has been received and the acknowledgement would also
serve the purpose of proof in further appeals. Even if you give
an RTI application, get an acknowledgement that your application
has been received by the concerned authority.
The required information can be
obtained from any ‘public authority’ which includes almost any
entity constituted under the authority of the Constitution of
India, or by the laws enacted by the state or central
legislatures or by any notification issued by the
government.Almost any government departments and organizations
including corporation, municipalities, panchayats and public
sector undertakings except the organisations mentioned in the
second schedule to the act like IB, RAW, DRI, para-military
forces etc., (download RTI Act in this page
http://rti.gov.in/rti-act.pdf).
Information can be obtained through this act from even
non-governmental organisations or any other organisation whose
substantial fund comes from the government (either by the state
or central government).To whom I should address? And how?
State governmental departments /
organisations have ‘State Public Information Officers’ and the
Central governmental departments / organisations have ‘Central
Public Information Officers’. The application can be sent
through post and should have your questions, address and a fees
of Rs.10 in the form of Indian Postal Order, DD, or if give your
application in person Rs.10 in cash (but don’t forget to get the
receipt). Some state governments have prescribed different fees
which can be obtained from the concerned public authority of
state government. Even though the application can be sent on
e-mail, it is necessary to send a hard copy along-with the
prescribed fees. So, it is better to apply either in person or
post.
The good thing about this act is
that you need not state the reason to ask for any information.
Another good part of this act is
that if a RTI application is sent to a wrong public authority
i.e application seeking information is not pertaining to the
authority to whom application is sent, it becomes the
responsibility of that particular public authority to send the
application to the correct place and also to intimate the
applicant on this.
Every central and state
government departments and organisations have designated ‘Public
Information Officer’ (PIO) to answer the queries made under this
act.
If the designation of the PIO is
not known, simply the application can be addressed to ‘SPIO /
CPIO (State / Central Public Information Officer), C/o. the Head
of Department’ (for example ‘SPIO, C/o. the Superintendent of
Police’ or ‘CPIO, C/o. the Cabinet Secretary’). Then it becomes
the responsibility of the concerned head of the department to
forward the application to the concerned officer.
There is no prescribed format
for asking information. Questions can be written on a plain
paper addressing to the designation of the PIO of the concerned
state or central government departments.
You can also ask information in
electronic form if the same is available with the authority
concerned.
No. Except for the information
that is excluded from being provided under Section 8 of the RTI
Act, any other information must be provided. Also, the
Organisations which are mentioned to the Schedule II to the Act
need not also provide information. But these organisations must
also provide information to those queries if those queries
relate to corruption or human right violations. The information
to the questions relating to violation of human rights must be
provided by these organisation only with the approval of
Central / State Information Commission.
Following information cannot be
obtained:
- the information compromise the integrity, sovereignty and security of the country
- the information demanded affect the economic, scientific interests of the country
- the information that would affect the relationship of the country with other countries
- the information that could be used to incite an offence
- the information which could cause breach of privilege of legislatures i.e., parliament / state assembly or state legislature
In such circumstances RTI
application can be rejected. Then the PIO must provide the
reasons for the rejections, the particulars of appellate
authority and the time limit for filing appeal.
The applicant must first appeal
to the appellate authority (specified in the rejection letter of
the PIO) along-with your original application. Again there is
no prescribed format and no fees for this. The Second Appeal
lies either to State Information Commission or Central
Information Commission if the subject department / organisation
fall under the purview of state or central government as the
case may be. We can also launch complaint / appeal to Central
Information Commission through the following link
http://rti.india.gov.in/.
Yes. As said earlier, RTI being
a fundamental right, you can approach Supreme Court (under
Article 32 of the Constitution) or High Court (under Article 226
of the Constitution) and file Writ Petitions and get remedy.
Getting remedy from the Supreme Court or High Court itself is a
fundamental right.
The Supreme Court held in the
case of ‘Raj Narainvs State of UP’:
“People cannot speak or express
themselves unless they know”.
It is the view of the Supreme
Court that if a citizen of a country does not know how the
government that rules that too with the money of taxpayers
functions, he cannot speak or express effectively because his
knowledge is restricted as he has no knowledge of how the
government is functioning. So to ensure that the fundamental
right 19 (1) (a) enshrined by the constitution is enjoyed by the
citizens, it becomes implicit that the government is bound to
part with the information it has. Thus the right to information
is indirectly guaranteed by the constitution.
If a particular right is a
fundamental right then there is a good advantage. Unlike any
other right like natural right or legal right, you can approach
Supreme Court or High Court if you are denied of a fundamental
right. Writ Jurisdiction of either the Supreme Court or High
Court can be invoked to get remedy if there is an infringement
of fundamental rights.
Official Secrets Act, 1923 (a
legacy of the colonial regime) still exists and the information
whose disclosure is not permitted under that Act cannot be
disclosed under the RTI Act too. The RTI activists want
amendments in the Official Secrets Act to make it synchronise
with the RTI ACT. The Official Secrets Act restricts the full
functionality of RTI.
The text of RTI Act can be
downloaded from this link
http://rti.gov.in/rti-act.pdf
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