Amendment to RTI rules needed to make it more effective
Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) has fulfilled formality in 'inviting' suggestions through e-mail in RTI rules as one more of such attempts in becoming a hurdle rather than nodal agency for handling RTI Act.
DEPARTMENT OF Personnel & Training (DoPT) has merely fulfilled a formality in ‘inviting’ suggestions through e-mail in RTI rules as one more of such attempts in becoming a hurdle rather than nodal agency for handling RTI Act. DoPT like many other public-authorities is trying to misuse section 27 of RTI Act through such proposed notification which along with section 28 need to be repealed altogether so that any move to obstruct RTI Act may not be possible without amending the RTI Act by seeking first Parliamentary approval. DoPT is silent on misuse of section 27 and 28 where many public-authorities have framed rules which are in contradiction to RTI Act itself apart from having enormously high RTI fees in contradiction to DoPT rules for its being ten rupees. ‘One Nation, One Rule’ should be motto for RTI Act and rules. Proposed rule 4 restricting RTI petition in just 250 words will largely obstruct right of poor and less educated ones who may not be expert in drafting RTI petitions in précised form as expected by DoPT. Provision of having separate RTI petition for separate subjects already exists. Increased powers to Commission can very well handle alleged misuse by a very minute section of petitioners through lengthy RTI petitions with large number of questions. Therefore freedom to use RTI Act should not be restricted by such unwanted riders. DoPT has proposed through rule 5(h) that postal-charges in excess of rupees ten for providing information will be paid by petitioner meaning thereby that public-authorities will now have to send demand-letter towards postal-charges before providing information, because in most cases public-authorities use reliable and fast Speed Post for which minimum charges for local delivery are rupees twelve. It is something different that DoPT is amongst rarest of rare public authorities using unreliable ordinary post for providing information which usually reaches to petitioners after a week or even later. Public-authorities have to spend man-hours and postal-charges to demand just rupees two for copy of single page. Best and practical option is to have an RTI fee of rupees twenty uniformly for all public-authorities without giving any liberty under section 27 or 28 to have a different RTI fees as notified by DoPT with a provision to provide copy of first say ten pages of documents free-of-cost. Every additional ten pages or part may require twenty rupees extra. RTI fees and copying charges may be payable only through specially introduced RTI stamps which should be available at all post-offices, banks and all public authorities also to avoid huge loss of public-money in handling postal-orders sent towards RTI fees. Recent RTI response has revealed that handling charge for a postal-order are rupees 22.71 as per data on basis of financial year 2006-07. All public-authorities should be directed to use fast, reliable and economical Speed Post service in cities connected through Speed Post service. Proposed Rule 11 contradicts section 18 of RTI Act whereby a petitioner can directly file complaint under section 18 of RTI Act with the Commission against Public Information Officer (PIO) if the PIO does not respond to an RTI petition within stipulated 30-days time-period. Moreover to quicken the process, First Appellate Authority should be provided 30 days rather than 45 days to decide the first appeal. Proposed Rule 19 should also prescribe departmental-proceedings and other penal-provisions against officers not complying with orders of the Commission. There should also be penal-provision for first Appellate Authorities not deciding appeals in stipulated period. It should be mandatory (not discretionary) not only for the Commission but even for first Appellate Authority to impose penalty on CPIOs not responding within 30 days. Copying-charges waived under section 7(6) of RTI Act due to late response from CPIO, should be deducted from salary of CPIO instead of being suffered by the public-authority. There should be penal-provision even for competent authorities of public-authorities not complying with provisions contained in section 4 (and its other sub-sections) of RTI Act Written submissions by public-authorities at least twenty days before scheduled hearing at the Commission should be made compulsory with a copy to the petitioner. Since public-authorities are much-more elaborative in their response at the Commission, ever-increasing work-load on the Commission may be considerably reduced by abandoning the hearing in case petitioner is satisfied by suggested compulsory written submissions of public-authorities. Another rule should be for PIOs to compulsorily mention date of RTI petition and of its receipt apart from his name, telephone-number, e-mail ID and complete postal address. Not providing any of these information may also be taken as non-compliance PIOs even usually do not comply with section 7(8) of RTI Act when they do not give particulars of Appellate Authority. Central Information Commission should have power to review its single-bench decisions by a larger bench at Central Information Commission itself. No dilution of RTI Act in any other form either as demanded by Judiciary or by DoPT should be done. Chief Information Commissioner should be appointed from amongst senior-most Information Commissioners turn-by-turn for one year each like is adopted for appointing Dean at Faculty of Management (Delhi University). System will avoid vacuum at post of Chief Information Commissioner in case of unexpected vacancy apart from existing Information Commissioners feeling humiliated of being bypassed through appointment of an outsider at post of Chief Information Commissioner. Newer ideas will emerge from various Information Commissioners getting opportunity to head the Commission turn-by-turn each for a year.
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