RIGHT TO INFORMATION


The Delhi High Court has said that under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) is an exempted organisation, but if an RTI applicant seeks human rights or corruption-based information, it is liable to be disclosed.   The case pertains to an RTI...

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The informer, who claims to have provided vital clues of huge tax evasion to the principal director of income tax (investigation), Kolkata, on the basis of which the central bureau of investigation (CBI) and enforcement directorate (ED) were able to arrest Enamul Haque, known to be the...

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Generally, it is an accepted fact that the pendency of second appeals and complaints in central and state information commissions is often over a year or two.   However, it was not so in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The J&K state Right to Information (RTI) Act (now it is a Union...

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The Leaflet 13 April 2023
While the Supreme Court, on the facts of the case, did not entertain the petition by the ED, it disapproved the reasoning offered by the high court that non-supply of the information or documents was a human rights violation as in the absence of the same, the information seeker would not be...

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The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), which is the first public authority in India to initiate the ‘open day’ every Monday since 2009 for citizens to freely access information by inspecting files under Section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, is hurdled due to a lack of knowledge or...

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Undoubtedly, the voluminous pending second appeals or complaints are major hurdles to the quick dissemination of information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. A small percentage of the piling of pendency is also because of a series of RTI applications filed by the same applicant,...

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Thanks to the inordinate pendency of second appeals and complaints of right to information (RTI) applicants, which are not heard by information commissioners for over one or even two years after filing them, the trend of applicants remaining absent on the day of the hearing is becoming...

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Strongly opposing the proposal of the government to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act through the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDP Bill), a group of RTI activists, along with some political leaders and people, have made a firm resolution to oppose any regressive amendments...

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The Delhi High Court has held that both Indian citizens and non-citizens have access to the Right to Information (RTI), and to restrict that to non-citizens would be against both the RTI Act and the Indian Constitution.   AS Rawat, a public information officer (PIO) employed by the...

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Despite the fact that Right to Information (RTI) applicant Dharmpal was a regular visitor to the Punjab National Bank's (PNB’s) Haridwar branch, he was not given full information regarding his father’s bank account details and fixed deposits, which he had asked for under RTI, after his...

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Early this week, right to information (RTI) applicant Ajay Marathe was denied information by the central information commission (CIC) that he had requested from the national commission of women (NCW) in the Ketaki Chitale case of Maharashtra, wherein a Facebook post mocking Nationalist...

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A third party clause is invoked by any public information officer (PIO) under the RTI (Right to Information) Act if he denies information citing personal information. According to it, if a PIO intends to disclose it to the RTI applicant, he could do it only after an okay from the third...

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Do copies of the income tax filing returns, TDS paid on all repairs and expenses, invoice and payment details and a PAN card of a cooperative housing society come under the ambit of disclosures under the RTI? Yes, says the central information commissioner (CIC), toppling the Income Tax (I-T)...

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While the members of Parliament (MPs) have been demanding statistics in both Houses, about the number of instances in which the 2009 Blocking Rules were invoked to block public access to content on various social and digital media and getting no specific replies, a right to information (RTI)...

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Vinesh Phogat, a triple Commonwealth Games gold medallist, along with other Olympians and nationally-acclaimed wrestlers, has gone public with charges of sexual harassment by a member of Parliament (MP) from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and coaches, by sitting in a dharna at Jantar Mantar in...

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IANS 16 January 2023
The Jharkhand High Court has questioned the state government over the Information Commission not being functional in the state.   The High Court also sought an answer on the vacant post of the chairman in the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC).   While hearing a...

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A right to information (RTI) applicant, who sought information on whether the central bureau of investigation (CBI) had filed a first information report (FIR) as requested by the Bank of Baroda against one of its borrowal accounts which was termed as fraudulent, was denied information under...

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The case of the missing files; rather, the replies that the files are missing, is a common excuse given by public information officers (PIOs) across the country. Thanks are due to the use of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, which led to the decision of an information commissioner.  The...

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Again, it is the same directive and, again, it is the same attitude of non-compliance. Recently, the department of personnel & training (DoPT) working under the Union ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions has given guidelines on suo motu disclosure under Section 4 of the Right...

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Concerned about the non-compliance with established principles of pre-legislative consultation for the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, leading right to information (RTI) activists from across the country are demanding a more rigorous and extensive process of public...

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