A group of law students here has raised the issue of discrepancies in the Delhi High Court’s RTI rules with the Right to Information Act, 2005, while affirming that the lack of compatibility had led to denial of access to information available under the law. The issue also affects a fundamental right of citizens, according to them.
In a representation addressed to High Court’s Chief Justice G. Rohini, the students have pointed out that the provisions for exorbitant fee and filing of separate applications for unrelated information as well as the lack of provision for supply of information free of cost had rendered the High Court’s rules, framed in 2006, inconsistent with the RTI Act. While the RTI Act prescribes Rs. 10 as application fee and Rs. 2 per page for providing physical or photocopies, the High Court’s rules have laid down the application fee of Rs. 50 and Rs. 5 per page for copies.
There is no provision in the RTI Act for filing of separate applications in case of unrelated information, but Rule 3 of the High Court’s rules states that for each piece of information sought, a separate application should be made. “This is creating unnecessary financial loss in terms of extra paper, extra application fee, extra delivery charges as well as a more time-consuming process for both applicants and the public information officer,” said the representation.
Besides, there is no provision in the High Court’s rules for supply of information free of cost to the citizens falling under the below poverty line (BPL) category.
The representation was signed by law students Aastha Sharma, Ishwin Mehta, Paras Jain and Kumar Shanu. Two of them reside in Noida, while one lives in Civil Lines and another in Rohini. All of them are pursuing the law course in a private university here.
Seeking the Chief Justice’s intervention, the students requested her to harmonise the High Court’s RTI rules with the Central legislation in order to uphold and promote the objective and spirit of the RTI Act.
Significantly, the Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension had on July 10 this year written to the chief secretaries of all States, registrars of all High Courts, and the Supreme Court registrar with the request to review their RTI rules and bring those in consonance with those notified by the Union government. It had pointed out that the fee should not become a disincentive for using the right to information.
They have pointed out that provisions for exorbitant fee and filing of separate applications for unrelated information had rendered the HC rules inconsistent with the RTI Act
