-The Times of India LUCKNOW: The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has denied to provide information on Robert Vadra writ petition filed in the Allahabad high court. The public information officer (PIO) of the PMO denied providing notesheet of the case-related file to the petitioner and social activist Nutan Thakur saying that the matter was sub-judice. To this Thakur, wrote to the first appellate authority (FAO) saying that the RTI Act nowhere prohibits...

-The Hindu The Government of India took a major step forward in enabling Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) to file applications under the Right to Information Act this week, announcing that it has launched a service called "elPO," or Electronic Indian Postal Order. Using this, NRIs across the world may now be in a position to file RTI applications conveniently via direct payment of fees for the same. According to an Office Memorandum put...

-PTI In a peculiar case, the Central Information Commission could not punish some CBI officials for a delayed response on an RTI application seeking information on Commonwealth Games related corruption cases as the persons concerned were "no longer in service". During a hearing of a complaint filed by Delhi advocate Vivek Garg, Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra said no penalty was imposed on the officials with CBI's Anti Corruption Branch (ACB),...

-PTI The Centre has asked all departments under it to ensure that RTI applicants are informed in time about payment of additional fees as photocopying charges and others. The directive came after the Central Information Commission (CIC) approached the Department of Personnel and Training, a nodal department for implementation of the transparency law, with complaints from various RTI applicants. It has been brought to the notice of CIC that some Central...

-DNA As cases of denial of information under the Right to Information Act pile up, the Reserve Bank of India approached various courts as many as nine times against the Central Information Commission’s (CIC) orders directing it to provide information. Seven of these cases are now pending in the Delhi High Court while two are in the Bombay High Court. Not only has the RBI preferred litigation against providing information, the central...