LEARNING WITH

Right to Information Act

What is the Right to Information Act?
The Right to Information(RTI) ACT,2004 is a comprehensive legislation that would confer statutory rights on citizen for seeking information from public authorities.The Act seeks to ensure-(a)maximum exemptions consistent with constitutional provisions (b)an effective mechanism for access information and disclosure by authorities(c)an independent appeal mechanism and (d)penalities for failure to provide information as per the law.The Act is a major improvement on the freedom of information Act that was passed by Parliament in December 2002 but never came into force.The RTI Bill was tabled in Parliament on December 23,2004 and was passed on May 12,2005.Upon receiving President's assent on June 15,2005 the RTI Act is supposed to come into force within 120 days.So latest by October 12 this year,the RTI Act should be functional in every city and village.The act is not applicable to the state of Jammu & Kashmir and intelligence and security organisations like the IB,RAW,BSF,etc are out of the cabinet and council of ministers.

What are the key provisions in the RTI Act,2004?
The preamble of the RTI act states that it sets out to provide a 'practical regime of right to information for people to secure access to information .....in order to promote transparency and accountability.Only citizens can request information from a 'public authority',defined as any body owned or controlled by the Central government,this definition does not include private bodies that perform public services.Broadly,the Act includes a right to copy and inspect records,take certified samples and inspect public works.Public authorities are also bound to proactively publish a wide range of information about their oraganisation.A Central Chief Information Commisioner will be appointed by a committee consisting of the Prime Minister,leader of the opposition and a union minister mominated by the PM.Each state will also have its own information commissioner .Additionally,an officer at each sub-divisional level or other appropriate sub-district level shall be designated as Public inforamtion officer(PIO).The PIO shall recieve all requests for information,and pass them on to the designated authority for transmission to the relevant department or agency.

What is the procedure for seeking information under the Act? Information must be requested in writing,including by e-mail,and the request must be submitted to the PIO.Applications need to be responded to within 30 days ,except in cases concerning the life and liberty of the person,Where no response is received,this will be deemed to be a refusal.Applications must be rejected in writing with the appropriate reasons.Where applications are approved,a fee will be deemed to be refusal.Applications must be rejected in writing with the appropriate reasons.Where applications are approved,a fee will be imposed for accessing the information.However,if the application is not dealt with in time,fees will not be collected.If a person believes she has been wrongly denied information,she can appela to the officer immediately senior to the PIO in the concerned public authority.A second appeal can be lodged with the independent information commisioner.Penalities can be imposed on PIOs at the rate of Rs.250 a day upto Rs 25,000.

What is the current controversy regarding the Act?
After initially rejecting it,the government has finally accepted the bureaucrats demand that nothings by officials on goverment files should not be made public under the RTI Act. The president has also backed the demand and supporters of this view claim that if not enacted it will discourage officials from making honest and fair assessments as file notings are part of the deliberation process.