Centre proposes 250-word limit for RTI applications Mathang Seshagiri | TNN http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOINEW/navigator.asp?Daily=TOIBG&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI&AW=1292122521390
The draft Right to Information (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules, 2005, now proposes to restrict request for information to only one subject matter and within 250 words. The address of the public information officer and that of the applicant will be excluded during the word count. If the draft rules are accepted in toto, information-seekers will have to file separate applications on different subject matters. The rules, notified by the ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions, has kicked off a nationwide debate on whether the new restrictions go against the letter and spirit of the five-yearold Right to Information Act. "I feel that 250 words is a decent limit. I have come across applications that run into 50 pages. Sometimes the number of questions go up to 10. How is the public information officer supposed to handle this? The draft rules will encourage focussed inquiry. Applicants should know what exactly they want from the public authority," Shailesh Gandhi, information commissioner at the Central Information Commission, told STOI. Subhash Chandra Agrawal, an RTI activist, sees this as a move "to obstruct one's right to access information under the RTI Act." When the Karnataka Information Commission amended its rules to restrict the request for information to 150 words in 2008, CommonWealth Human Rights Initiative, a NGO championing the cause of RTI, had vehemently opposed it. "By restricting the application to access information on only one subject matter amounts to placing limitations on the right of access beyond the grounds mentioned in Sections 8 and 9 of the Act. This is both illegal and undesirable and goes against the letter and spirit of the Act," it stated in an appeal to the Karnataka government. Since the words "subject matter" is left undefined in the rules, the NGO argued, that public information officer will have "unreasonable amount of discretion" while deciding what constitutes single subject matter. |
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