Govt dismisses charges of killing RTI Act

New Delhi: The government on Tuesday sought to trash the allegations that it was trying to kill the RTI Act, saying the charges that appeared in a section of media were ”factually incorrect and misleading.”
There was no basis of the report that a new set of RTI Rules had been formulated which creates difficulties and hurdles in the right of the citizens to get information from the government, and that the size of the RTI application has been restricted to 500 words and a provision of fees has been unfairly introduced in the Rules, the government said.
According to the statement, the Central government had in January 2012 notified the RTI Rules under Section 27 of the Right to Information Act, 2005 providing that an RTI application will ordinarily be not more than 500 words with a nominal fee being charged from each applicant.
However, legality of the CIC (Management) regulations of 2007 was challenged before the Delhi High Court and these were quashed. The matter has been pending before the Supreme Court.
The government decided, in consultation with the CIC, that a comprehensive set of rules be notified by consolidating the key provisions of CIC (Management) Regulations and also the Rules of 2012. Same has been put up in public domain for comments.
The existing RTI Rules 2012 notified on July 31, 2012 specifically provide in section 3 that an application shall ordinarily not contain more than 500 words excluding annexure.
It further provides that no application shall be rejected only on the grounds that it contains more than 500 words. There is no change proposed in these provisions in the new rules.
There is no change in fee and the existing rules have been proposed to be continued, and there is also no change in the postal charges for sending the information. (UNI)