The Right to Information Act: A Review

The Right to Information (RTI) Act provides for charging of the fees under three sections: section 6(1), section 7(1) and section 7(5). I am surprised that till date the government has not laid down any rules for the collection of fees u/s 7(1) — this is not the same as initial application fees of Rs 10 charged u/s 6(1). Of course, the fees charged under the RTI Act is ludicrous. Further, I have serious problems with the payment of initial application fees of Rs 10 per se. It just doesn’t serve any purpose except for creating bureaucratic hurdles and wasting time. Much better would be to accept the RTI requests via e-mail or online sans fees and demand the processing fees u/s 7(1) later if the application is found worth processing. The intimation about processing or non-processing of the applications can be sent to the applicants via e-mails, SMSs and online within a week from the date of application. Of course, a person can also be given a choice to file the initial application offline along with an adequately stamped self-addressed envelope.

The public information officer (PIO) has been projected as a friend under sectio 5(3), the RTI Act, but that is precisely what he has not emerged as. He has rather emerged more as an adversary. Those PIOs who fail to understand their responsibilities under the RTI Act should be given harsh punishments at the instance of the applicants, but I am sorry to say that the faulty CIC proceedings endorsed by the higher judiciary has turned the CIC into a cozy club of senior bureaucrats protecting their junior counterparts. How can the CIC conduct penalty proceedings u/s 20, the RTI Act, all of its own without presence of the applicants?

The first appeals are a farce. They just waste time. No first appellate authority (FAA) ever overturns the decision of the PIO. In fact, in many offices, the PIOs themselves prepare the FAA’s orders, and the FAAs sign them as a routine bureaucratic exercises. The second appeals are very slow. When a time limit has been fixed up for the disposal of the first appeals, why shouldn’t there be one for the second appeals as well? Delay is the deadliest form of denial! It normally takes six months to get the first hearing listing in the central information commission (CIC), which is ridiculous. And, except for the senior citizens, there is no provision for urgent hearings even. The judiciary works more efficiently than the CIC. At least they grant urgent interim orders.

The CIC doesn’t understand evidence. I have read many orders of the CIC. Many of them were wanting in following the rules of evidence and natural justice. At times the CIC goes overboard, but, at other times, they falter in following even the basic rules. For example, in the recent decision of the CIC on political parties, the CIC unnecessarily issued notices to the L&D department when they could have just summoned them to produce the documents. However, at the same time, they made an arbitrary assumption that political parties receive substantial amount of funding from the government. Thus, they put up the onus on NCP to prove that the subsidized land and the other concessions they got from the government did not form a substantial part of their funding. If and when the matter will go before the high court, this one procedural irregularity can give unnecessary advantage to political parties. The CIC could have easily asked the political parties to render accounts without making such unnecessary assumptions. Surely, there is a need for the inclusion of judicial members in the CIC.