Right to Information Act - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Right to Information Act 2005 (RTI) is an Act of the Parliament of India

Parliament of India

The Parliament of India is the supreme legislative body in India. Founded in 1919, the Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all political bodies in India. The Parliament of India comprises the President and the two Houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha...

"to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens." The Act applies to all States and Union Territories of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir is the northernmost state of India. It is situated mostly in the Himalayan mountains. Jammu and Kashmir shares a border with the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south and internationally with the People's Republic of China to the north and east and the...

. Jammu and Kashmir has its own act called Jammu & Kashmir Right to Information Act, 2009

J&K Right to Information Act

The Jammu & Kashmir Right to Information Act, 2009 came into force on 20 March 2009, repealing and replacing the erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir Right to Information Act, 2004 and the Jammu & Kashmir Right to Information Act, 2008. The Act is based closely upon the Central Right to Information Act, 2005...

. Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen may request information from a "public authority" (a body of Government or "instrumentality of State") which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to pro-actively publish

Publishing

Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...

certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally.
This law was passed by Parliament on 15 June 2005 and came fully into force on 13 October 2005. Information disclosure in India was hitherto restricted by the Official Secrets Act 1923

Official Secrets Act 1923

The Official Secrets Act 1923 is India's anti-espionage act held over from British colonisation. It states clearly that any action which involves helping an enemy state against India. It also states that one cannot approach, inspect, or even pass over a prohibited government site or area...

and various other special laws, which the new RTI Act now relaxes.
The formal recognition of a legal right to information in India occurred more than two decades before legislation was finally enacted, when the Supreme Court of India ruled in State of U.P. v. Raj Narain that the right to information is implicit in the right to freedom of speech and expression explicitly guaranteed in Article 19 of the Indian Constitution.

Framework

Disclosure of State information in British India was (and is) governed from 1889 by the Official Secrets Act

Official Secrets Act 1923

. This law secures information related to security of the State, sovereignty of the country and friendly relations with foreign states, and contains provisions which prohibit disclosure of non-classified information. Civil Service conduct rules and the Indian Evidence Act impose further restrictions on government officials' powers to disclose information to the public.

Freedom of Information Act 2002

Passage of a national level law, however, proved to be a difficult task. Given the experience of state governments in passing practicable legislation, the Central Government appointed a working group under H. D. Shourie and assigned it the task of drafting legislation. The Shourie draft, in an extremely diluted form, was the basis for the Freedom of Information Bill, 2000 which eventually became law under the Freedom of Information Act, 2002. This Act was severely criticized for permitting too many exemptions, not only under the standard grounds of national security and sovereignty, but also for requests that would involve "disproportionate diversion of the resources of a public authority". There was no upper limit on the charges that could be levied. There were no penalties for not complying with a request for information. The FoI Act, consequently, never came into effective force.

State Level Laws

The RTI Laws were first successfully enacted by the state governments of — Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...

(1997), Goa

Goa

Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...

(1997), Rajasthan

Rajasthan

Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...

(2000), Karnataka

Karnataka

Karnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...

(2000), Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

(2001), Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

(2002), Assam

Assam

Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...

(2002), Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh , often called the Heart of India, is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and Indore is the largest city....

(2003), and Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir

(2004). The Maharashtra and Delhi State level enactments are considered to have been the most widely used. The Delhi RTI Act is still in force. Jammu & Kashmir, has its own Right to Information Act of 2009, the successor to the repealed J&K Right to Information Act, 2004 and its 2008 amendments.

Right to Information movement

In early 1990s Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana

Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana

The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan is an Indian social movement founded by Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh along with a number of peasants and workers in Devdungari village of Rajsamand district in Rajasthan state in 1990. In the 1990s, it spearheaded the right to information movement in...

began a movement to− bring in transparency in village accounts. Initially, MKSS lobbied government to obtain information such as master rolls (employment and payment records) and bills and vouchers relating to purchase and transportation of materials. This information was then crosschecked at Jan Sunwais (public hearings) against actual testimonies of workers. The public hearings were incredibly successful in drawing attention to corruption and exposing leakages in the system.
Success of MKSS became a source of inspiration for activists in India and led to the genesis of a broader discourse on the right to information in India. In 1993, a first draft RTI law was proposed by the Consumer Education and Research Council, Ahmedabad (CERC). In 1996, the Press Council of India headed by Justice P B Sawant presented a draft model law on the right to information to the Government of India. The draft model law was later updated and renamed the PCI-NIRD Freedom of Information Bill 1997. MKSS's advocacy gave rise to the National Campaign on People's Right to Information (NCPRI), which was formed to advocate for the right to information at the national level. In 1997 efforts to legislate for the right to information, at both the State and National level, quickened. A working group under the chairmanship of Mr. H D Shourie (the Shourie Committee) was set up by the Central Government and given the mandate to prepare draft legislation on freedom of information. The Shourie Committee's Report and draft law were published in 1997. The Shourie Committee draft law passed through two successive governments, but was never introduced in Parliament. In 1999 NDA

National Democratic Alliance

The National Democratic Alliance is a name used by political parties of several countries:* National Democratic Alliance for Egypt* National Democratic Alliance * National Democratic Alliance * National Democratic Alliance...

minister Mr Ram Jethmalani, then Union Minister for Urban Development, issued an administrative order enabling citizens to inspect and receive photocopies of files. Shourie Committee draft law was reworked into the Freedom of Information Bill 2000. It was passed in December 2002 and received Presidential asset on January 2003, as the Freedom of Information Act 2002.
In 1998, during the Rajasthan State elections the Congress

Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...

Party promised in its election manifesto to enact a law on right to information if it came to power. Following their election, the Party appointed a committee of bureaucrats to draft a bill on the right to information. As the Committee was comprised only bureaucrats, stong objections were raised by civil society organisations, following which the members of MKSS and National Campaign for Peoples Right to Information were invited to assist in drafting the bill. MKSS and NCPRI conducted a host of consultations in each divisional headquarters of the State. Drawing on the input from these consultations, a draft civil society Right to Information Bill was prepared, which was then submitted to the Committee. The Committee drew on the citizens draft Bill for its recommendations, but refused to accept the Bill in toto. The Rajasthan Right to Information Act 2000 was eventually passed on 11 May 2000. The Act in its final form retained many of the suggestions of the RTI movement, but diluted others.
In the early 2000s Anna Hazare

Anna Hazare

Kisan Baburao Hazare , popularly known as Anna Hazare is an Indian social activist and a prominent leader in the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi...

led a movement in Maharashtra state which forced the state government to pass a stronger Maharashtra Right to Information Act. This Act was later considered as the base document for the Right to Information Act 2005 (RTI)

Right to Information Act

The Right to Information Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of India "to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens." The Act applies to all States and Union Territories of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir has its own act...

, enacted by the Union Government. It also ensured that the President of India assented to this new Act. Law professor Alasdair Scott Roberts

Alasdair Roberts (academic)

Alasdair S. Roberts is a Canadian professor at Suffolk University Law School, Boston, Massachusetts, and author of articles and books on public policy issues, especially relating to government secrecy and the exercise of government authority.-Education:...

said:

In 2004, under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, the Congress party won the national elections and formed the central government. Aruna Roy was inducted into the National Advisory Committee (NAC), an extremely powerful but extra-constitutional quasi-governmental body headed by Sonia Gandhi which effectively supervises the working of the common minimum program of UPA II . Aruna Roy submitted a paper recommending amendments to the 2002 Freedom of Information Act to the NAC which in turn sent by it to the Prime Minister's Office. The Right to Information Bill 2004 (RTI Bill 2004) was tabled on 23 December during the winter session of the Lok Sabha. The RTI Bill 2004 was based largely on recommendations submitted to the Government by the NAC which was passed by the Indian parliament in 2005.
On 20 July 2006 the Union Cabinet amended the Right to Information Act 2005 to exclude the file noting by the government officials from its purview. Hazare began his fast unto death on 9 August 2006 in Alandi

Alandi

Alandi is a city and a municipal council in Pune district in the state of Maharashtra, India.-Geography:Alandi is located on the banks of the Indrayani River, east of Pune, India. It has an average elevation of .-Demographics:...

against the proposed amendment. He ended his fast on 19 August 2006, after the government agreed to change its earlier decision.

Scope

The Act covers the whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir, where J&K Right to Information Act

J&K Right to Information Act

is in force. It is applicable to all constitutional authorities, including the executive, legislature and judiciary; any institution or body established or constituted by an act of Parliament or a state legislature. It is also defined in the Act that bodies or authorities established or constituted by order or notification of appropriate government including bodies "owned, controlled or substantially financed" by government, or non-Government organizations "substantially financed, directly or indirectly by funds" provided by the government are also covered in it.

Private bodies

Private bodies are not within the Act's ambit directly. However, information that can be accessed under any other law in force by a public authority can also be requested. In a landmark decision of 30-Nov-2006 ('Sarbajit Roy

Sarbajit Roy

Sarbajit Roy is a prominent Freedom of Information activist and public interest litigation advocate, notable for successfully opposing some of India's largest corporates in the regulatory domain...

versus DERC

Derc

Derc is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Jeziorany, within Olsztyn County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately west of Jeziorany and north-east of the regional capital Olsztyn....

') the Central Information Commission also reaffirmed that privatized public utility companies continue to be within the RTI Act- their privatization not withstanding.

Right to Information

The Act empowers every citizen to:

Ask any questions from the Government or seek any information.
Take copies of any governmental documents.
Inspect any governmental documents.
Inspect any Governmental works.
Take samples of materials of any Governmental work.

Process

Under the Act, all authorities covered must appoint their Public Information Officer (PIO). Any person may submit a request to the PIO for information in writing. It is the PIO's obligation to provide information to citizens of India who request information under the Act. If the request pertains to another public authority (in whole or part), it is the PIO's responsibility to transfer/forward the concerned portions of the request to a PIO of the other within 5 working days. In addition, every public authority is required to designate Assistant Public Information Officers (APIOs) to receive RTI requests and appeals for forwarding to the PIOs of their public authority. The applicant is not required to disclose any information or reasons other than his name and contact particulars to seek the information.
"ApplyRTI" http://www.applyrti.com and "Rtination" http://www.rtination.com are the online system which facilitates the filing of RTI (Right To Information Act, India) applications online. It aims primarily at minimizing the time taken and effort required in filing an application.
The Act specifies time limits for replying to the request.

If the request has been made to the PIO, the reply is to be given within 30 days of receipt.
If the request has been made to an APIO, the reply is to be given within 35 days of receipt.
If the PIO transfers the request to another public authority (better concerned with the information requested), the time allowed to reply is 30 days but computed from the day after it is received by the PIO of the transferee authority.
Information concerning corruption and Human Rights violations by scheduled Security agencies (those listed in the Second Schedule to the Act) is to be provided within 45 days but with the prior approval of the Central Information Commission.
However, if life or liberty of any person is involved, the PIO is expected to reply within 48 hours.

Since the information is to be paid for, the reply of the PIO is necessarily limited to either denying the request (in whole or part) and/or providing a computation of "further fees". The time between the reply of the PIO and the time taken to deposit the further fees for information is excluded from the time allowed.
If information is not provided within this period, it is treated as deemed refusal. Refusal with or without reasons may be ground for appeal or complaint. Further, information not provided in the times prescribed is to be provided free of charge.
For Central Departments , there is a fee of 10 for filing the request, 2 per page of information and 5 for each hour of inspection after the first hour. If the applicant is a Below Poverty Card holder, then no fee shall apply. Such BPL Card holders have to provide a copy of their BPL card along with their application to the Public Authority. States Government and High Courts fix their own rules.

Partial disclosure

The Act allows those part(s) of the record which are not exempt from disclosure and which can reasonably be severed from parts containing exempt information to be provided.

Exclusions

Central Intelligence and Security agencies specified in the Second Schedule like IB,Directorate General of Income tax(Investigation), RAW, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Central Economic Intelligence Bureau, Directorate of Enforcement, Narcotics Control Bureau, Aviation Research Centre, Special Frontier Force, BSF, CRPF, ITBP, CISF, NSG, Assam Rifles, Special Service Bureau, Special Branch (CID), Andaman and Nicobar, The Crime Branch-CID-CB, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Special Branch, Lakshadweep Police. Agencies specified by the State Governments through a Notification will also be excluded. The exclusion, however, is not absolute and these organizations have an obligation to provide information pertaining to allegations of corruption and human rights violations. Further, information relating to allegations of human rights violation could be given but only with the approval of the Central or State Information Commission

Information Exclusions

The following is exempt from disclosure [S.8)]

Information, disclosure of which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, "strategic, scientific or economic" interests of the State, relation with foreign State or lead to incitement of an offense;
Information which has been expressly forbidden to be published by any court of law or tribunal or the disclosure of which may constitute contempt of court;
Information, the disclosure of which would cause a breach of privilege of Parliament or the State Legislature;
Information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information;
Information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information;
Information received in confidence from foreign Government;
Information, the disclosure of which would endanger the life or physical safety of any person or identify the source of information or assistance given in confidence for law enforcement or security purposes;
Information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders;
Cabinet papers including records of deliberations of the Council of Ministers, Secretaries and other officers;
Information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual (but it is also provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied by this exemption);
Notwithstanding any of the exemptions listed above, a public authority may allow access to information, if public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm to the protected interests. (NB: This provision is qualified by the proviso to sub-section 11(1) of the Act which exempts disclosure of "trade or commercial secrets protected by law" under this clause when read along with 8(1)(d))

Role of the government

Section 26 of the Act enjoins the central government, as also the state governments of the Union of India (excluding J&K), to initiate necessary steps to:

Develop educational programs for the public especially disadvantaged communities on RTI.
Encourage Public Authorities to participate in the development and organization of such programs.
Promote timely dissemination of accurate information to the public.
Train officers and develop training materials.
Compile and disseminate a User Guide for the public in the respective official language.
Publish names, designation postal addresses and contact details of PIOs and other information such as notices regarding fees to be paid, remedies available in law if request is rejected etc.

Power to make rules

The Central Government, State Governments and the Competent Authorities as defined in S.2(e) are vested with powers to make rules to carry out the provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005. (S.27 & S.28)

Residuary powers

If any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions in the Act, the Central Government may, by Order published in the Official Gazette, make provisions necessary/expedient for removing the difficulty. (S.30)

Effects

In the first year of National RTI, 42,876 (not yet official) applications for information were filed to Central (i.e. Federal) public authorities. Of these 878 were disputed at the final appellate stage - the Central Information Commission

Central Information Commission

The Central Information Commission set up under the Right to Information Act is the authorized body under the Government of India to act upon complaints from those individuals who have not been able to submit information requests to a Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information...

at New Delhi. A few of these decisions have thereafter been mired in further legal controversy in the various High Courts of India. The first stay order against a final appellate decision of the Central Information Commission was granted on 3.May.2006 by the High Court of Delhi in WP(C)6833-35/2006 cited as "NDPL & Ors. versus Central Information Commission & Ors". The Government of India's purported intention in 2006 to amend the RTI Act was postponed after public disquiet, but has been revived again in 2009 by the DoPT.

External links

Government of India links
- CIC - The Central Information Commission is empowered to decide complaints and appeals arising from use of the Right to Information Act, 2005.
- CIC Online - New website of the Central Information Commission.
- DoPT - The Department of Personnel and Training, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances, and Pensions, is charged with being the nodal agency for the Right to Information Act, 2005. It has the powers to make rules regarding appeals, fees, etc.
- Right to Information Act Portal
- Complete text of the Right to Information Act
Online groups discussing the Right to Information Act
- RTI Activists Forum Online Assistance from RTI Activists
- http://www.rtination.com RTINATION, Online discussion group for RTI activists
- RTI INDIA, Online community portal for Right to Information
- RTI INDIA Yahoo RTI e-group
Online News & works of RTI Activists
RTI Activist News is a News portal where news,views and articles from Right to Information Activist and General Public across India are published, RTI Activist's and all citizens can send in their findings in the form of Articles and News along with the evidences which is published,without any edit,This website aims and works not just as a forum, but a place for delivering details of happenings across India which are revealed under Right to Information Act and Peoples struggles by the Activists, Along with related News which effects the common Man.
RTI Application Forms Please download forms for filing RTI Application
Online filing of RTI Application
- www.applyrti.com File RTI instantly online.
www.getup4change.org Website for the collation of Information Retrieved through Indian RTI and file RTIs Anonymously.
Wikify India Initiative to publicly describe procedures of various government departments for common citizen services, like RTI applications, issue of passports, driving licenses etc, "to make navigation through India’s mind-numbing bureaucracy easier."

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