NEW DELHI: After the Food Security Bill , the Right to Information (RTI) Act has become a bone of contention between the National Advisory Council and the UPA government .
Despite insistence by the Council headed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the Department has rejected key suggestions on the draft RTI rules pertaining to word limit of 250 words for RTI applications and abatement of an appeal after the death of an applicant.
The department, which framed the draft rules for RTI Act, has sent a 13-page reply to the council on its observations on the rules. As first reported in ET on January 11, the National Advisory Council's sub-group on transparency and accountability headed by social activist Aruna Roy had sent a strongly-worded critique of the draft rules to the Department, saying the rules were against the spirit of the RTI Act.
The rules framed by the Personnel Department lay down provisions for application process, fee for providing information, filing first appeals and appointments in Information Commission. One of the provisions that the council had expressed its strong reservations is that an applicant will file an application in not more than 250 words, excluding the address of the public information officer and the applicant.
The draft rules lay down that the application would only be on a single subject. Despite objections, the department has refused to budge and said that it is the well-educated who are unable to write an application in 250 words and instead go into long-winding explanations.
Shooting down the council's apprehension on the poor and the illiterate not being able to frame an application, the department has written back saying, "apprehension that people who are not well educated may not be able to write an application within 250 words is without any basis inasmuch as long applications are made by the people who are well educated and who try to seek explanation, etc., instead of seeking information as defined in the Act. The Act provides that if a person is not able to make a request, the public information officer would render him assistance in making the request. This provision takes care of the people who are not well educated."
"Long applications contain statements and descriptions which are not relevant for seeking information. It only wastes the time of the public information officer and other officers who directly or indirectly deal with such applications. There is a need to strike a balance and to retain focus on the specific issue on which information is being sought."
The government remains firm on introducing this rule as the DoPT has clearly said that in case an applicant writes more than 250 words only the first 250 would be considered. It has also suggested that if there are more than one subject mentioned in an RTI application, questions related to the first one will be considered.
Another suggestion of the council was on abatement of an RTI appeal or complaint. Rule 16 of the draft rules says, "the proceedings pending before the commission shall abate on the death of the appellant." It had demanded that this provision should be deleted because this may encourage or may result in murder of the appellants.
26 JAN, 2011, 02.18AM IST, NIDHI SHARMA,ET BUREAU
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