RIGHT TO INFORMATION


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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Each day, police stations receive hundreds of complaints. As per the provision under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) 154 and 155, complaints must be registered in the general diary of the police. Also, as per the Madhya Pradesh police regulation 634, it is also mandatory for police to...

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Sometimes one wonders what happens to the orders of central or state information commissioners (SICs) which are appropriate under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, but are ignored by varied public authorities, including law enforcement agencies. One such case pertains to an SIC directive of...

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IANS 29 November 2022
An RTI activist was beaten to death allegedly by eight men, including the village head and his son, in Uttar Pradesh's Aligarh district for questioning the quality of public projects underway in the area.   The victim's brother was also critically injured in the...

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India’s Right to Information (RTI) Act has been hailed as one of the best transparency laws in the world. It recognises that citizens are the rulers of the nation. They are true rulers and owners of the government. In recognition of this, the RTI Act recognises their right to access all...

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An applicant, who has been filing numerous right to information (RTI) applications to seek redressal from various public authorities—over 118 of them in the last several months—was slammed by chief information commissioner YK Sinha for not only filing them to irrelevant public authorities but...

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We keep hearing about public information officers (PIOs) being slammed with penalty by information commissioners for not providing information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act or for providing insufficient or wrong information. Many a time, these penalties are not even recovered from...

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We have heard of public information officers (PIOs) being slammed with penalty if they deny or do not provide appropriate information. However, recently, refusing to accept a right to information (RTI) application has landed a PIO, the principal of a school in this case, in a soup, as he...

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IANS 03 November 2022
The time-frame for the competition of the much-debated India's first bullet train project between Ahmedabad-Mumbai is not yet fixed, as per an RTI reply.   The National High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd. (NHSRCL) deputy general manager (DGM) Umesh Kumar Gupta has conveyed this to Mumbai...

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The collapse of the Morbi suspension bridge last weekend, killing over 130 people and still counting (as several allegedly are still missing), has left the nation aghast and attracted international attention and sympathy. More so, because this bridge, built by the British in 1900, underwent...

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Although the Right to Information (RTI) Act empowers information commissioners (ICs) to impose penalties of up to Rs25,000 on erring public information officers (PIOs) and, although they have the power to issue show-cause notices to them, the dismal fact is that a negligible amount has been...

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Time and again, the judiciary, the central information commission (CIC) and, in some cases, even the director general of police (DGP) have ordered that first information reports (FIRs) should be made transparent by uploading them on police websites and providing copies if citizens demand...

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