High courts have failed to adhere to the Central Information Commission's directive to follow the Right to Information (RTI) Act rulebook. CIC, the final appellate authority for RTI Act, had ordered all the high courts to disclose complete information of the organisation, employees, salaries drawn, decisions taken and budget allocated, on their websites by April 1. However, not a single high court has complied with the direction. In January, CIC Satyananda...

That the RTI has become a tightly wedged thorn in the government’s side, punching holes to expose corruption and highlight the government’s inefficiency is no shocker. What is, however, is the Maharashtra government’s recent underhanded amendment of RTI in the state through two notifications in January 2012 without any public consultation. A notification dated 16 January, restricts both the number of subject matter and words in an application such that a...

As more and more scams come tumbling out of the closet by the day, courtesy the Right to Information (RTI), the Maharashtra government has made a move to amend RTI rules. As per a notification, dated January 16, which is floating around on emails, an applicant can ask questions only on a single subject matter and his application cannot exceed 150 words. Besides, during inspection, a person can carry only a...

Punctuality audit ordered by the Chief Secretary of the Delhi government last year opened the Pandora’s Box on poor attendance records of government officials. Documents obtained under an RTI filed by Pratidhi show that nodal departments had large numbers of their staff members missing, on most surprise checks. Chief secretary P K Tripathi had ordered the audit last June after writing to heads of all departments that they must conduct at...

The state government has rejected the demand of Right to Information Act activists to incorporate postal orders as one of the modes of payment of application fee and further fee under the RTI. Citing difficulty in the present prescribed modes of payment such as cash, DD, cheque and money order, the activists had petitioned the government seeking amendment to the Act to incorporate postal orders as a mode of payment. “Most public...