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RTI changes on NAC agenda by Vandita Mishra
The Right to Information Act 2005 is likely to figure prominently on the agenda of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council when it meets on March 24. Discussion will centre on the two amendments to its rules that have been proposed by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT). One, to restrict each application to 250 words. And two, to confine one application to one subject.

The Right to Information Rules, 2010, of the DoPT propose to make it binding that “the request for information shall relate only to one subject matter and shall be limited to two hundred and fifty words, excluding the address of the Central Public Information Officer and the address of the applicant”.

According to sources, the NAC’s working group has discussed these two issues at length, and these talks have included DoPT officials. The working group’s recommendations were then presented to the whole Council at the last NAC meeting on February 26.

On the word restriction, the NAC is broadly said to be coming around to the view that the limit could be extended to 500 words with an important caveat — the application should not “ordinarily” exceed that limit but those that do so will not be rejected on that account. The word limit, according to this view, should be inserted only as an advisory to encourage people to make more pointed queries, or as a warning to the professional RTI applicant.

On the one-subject stipulation, the NAC has not reached a consensus and it is felt that the matter needs further discussion. According to sources, concern has been expressed in NAC discussions that such a restriction would be unfair to the villager, for instance, who may first have to seek an official’s help to file the RTI application only to be told that he cannot ask why he has not got the Indira Awaas and the ration card at one go.

The larger point the NAC appears to be making is this: RTI application format must not be revised and tweaked for administrative convenience alone. It must also remain sensitive to the needs and constraints of the applicants.

Meanwhile, word and subject restrictions in RTI applications have been brought into play in at least two major states. According to rule 14 inserted by the Karnataka Right to Information (Amendment) Rules, 2008, “A request in writing for information under section 6 of the Act shall relate to one subject matter and it shall not ordinarily exceed one hundred and fifty words. If an applicant wishes to seek information on more than one subject matter, he shall make separate applications.”

It adds: “Provided that in case the request made relates to more than one subject matter, the Public Information Officer may respond to the request relating to the first subject matter only and may advise the applicant to make separate application for each of the other subject matters.”

The Bihar government followed Karnataka. According to the Bihar Right to Information (Amendment) Rules 2009, Rule 3A was inserted. “A request in writing for information under section of the Right to Information Act 2005 shall relate to one subject matter and it shall not ordinarily exceed one hundred and fifty words,” it says.

In 2007 and 2009, respectively, the Delhi High Court and the then Chief Information Commissioner expressed support for the subject restriction. Delhi HC held that “For each information sought, separate application shall be made. However, where more than one information sought is consequential or related to one another, applicant will be permitted to seek them in one application.”

And in 2009, then chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah decided that it is “not open to the applicant under the RTI Act to bundle a series of requests into one application unless these requests are treated separately and paid for accordingly... However, we concede that a request may be comprised of a question with several clarificatory or supporting questions stemming from the information sought. Such an application will indeed be treated as a single request and charged for accordingly.”