Right to Information Act is an act to empower the citizens
of a country to seekinformation 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.
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
1. All citizens shall have the right
(a)to freedom of speech and expression;
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
personal 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 does 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 ofinformation 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 theinformation 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 theinformation 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.
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 bythe
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).
State governmental departments /
organisations have ‘State Public InformationOfficers’
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 you give
application in person by paying 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.
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.
You can also ask information in electronic form if the same is
available with the authority concerned.
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.
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 linkhttp://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.
source : extracted from other web pages>>
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