{"id":15257,"date":"2019-04-06T18:44:04","date_gmt":"2019-04-06T13:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterslice.com\/learning\/?p=15257"},"modified":"2019-06-17T12:23:51","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T06:53:51","slug":"typical-obstacles-faced-in-filing-rti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterslice.com\/learning\/typical-obstacles-faced-in-filing-rti\/","title":{"rendered":"Background and Typical Obstacles Faced in Filing RTI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Right to Information Act, 2005, is often termed as one of the most ground-breaking legislation passed in Independent India. It has come out to be very powerful legislation in the hands of citizens of India. The main objective of this Right to information (RTI) was to provide the Indian citizens with the facility of securing information which is under the control of public authorities. The purpose of giving this right to the citizens was the promotion of transparency and responsibility in the workings of all the public authorities. In this <g class=\"gr_ gr_48 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep\" id=\"48\" data-gr-id=\"48\">article<\/g> we will discuss Background and Typical Obstacles Faced in Filing RTI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How to Make a\nRequest for Obtaining Information under RTI Act?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Section 6 of the RTI Act states the detailed procedure that\nhas to be undertaken by the applicant in order to get the desired information\nof a public authority. The <a href=\"https:\/\/enterslice.com\/learning\/filing-rti-online-application\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">procedure<\/a> for making this request is as\nfollows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>The\napplicant can make the request either in writing or via electronic means. The\nrequest can be in Hindi or in English or in the official language of the area\nwhere the request is being made. The request of the applicant shall be made\nalong with the prescribed fee. &nbsp;<\/li><li>The\nrequest for information has to be made to:<\/li><li>The concerned public authority&rsquo;s\nCentral Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer,\ndepending upon the case;<\/li><li>The concerned public authority&rsquo;s\nCentral Assistant Public Information Officer or State Assistant Public\nInformation Officer.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>In case the applicant is unable to\nmake the request in writing, the concerned officer shall provide relevant\nassistance to the applicant, who has provided the information orally to reduce\nthe same in writing. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>It\nis not necessary for the applicant to give the reason for requesting the\ninformation. The applicant would only be required to furnish his\/her contact\ndetails.<\/li><li>In\ncase the applicant has requested for information which is under the control of\nanother public authority, the public authority to which application of request\nis made shall transfer the application to that another authority.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Obstacles Faced\nin Filing RTI<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The following obstacles are faced by the people when filing an RTI application:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lack of Public\nAwareness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Majority of the population in India lacks knowledge on where\nto apply for information and how to apply for information. The whole objective\nof the Act becomes a failure if the required information does not come handy to\na person in need of it. Steps need to be taken by the Government to spread\nawareness as to right of people for demanding information from the public\nauthorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bad quality of\norders<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Supreme Court has pointed out in numerous RTI (Right to\ninformation) cases that the adjudicators tend to give unreasoned and ambiguous\norders. A lot many times, the information that is given out does not contain\nthe critical facts or the actual information that is required. It has also been\nnoticed that sometimes even the public authorities are unaware as to which\ninformation has to be given out. This is so because there are no set standards\nor rationale, with which the decisions of CIC or the information being given\nout can be compared. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The right to information of people is violated if the\ndecisions of IC are only recorded and are not backed up with proper reasons and\ndetails. This also disrupts the fundamental principle of transparency. Due to\ndeficient orders, the answerability and the public scrutiny of the information\ncommission and commissioners are prevented. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>An increasing\nnumber of pending cases<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The information commissions have a backlog of a large number\nof cases. The amount of pending cases is so large that it could even take years\nfor cases to be heard. This a big problem since some of the cases need\nimmediate hearing like cases involving minimum wages, old age pensions, medical\nfacilities, etc. The whole concept of getting the information via RTI would go\nmeaningless if the delay in hearing of cases continues as the grievances of the\napplicants would not be redressed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As per a study on 16 information commission, as on December\n31, 2015, the total number of pending caseswas 187,974. This clearly shows the\nplight of the cases lying with information commissions. Therefore, the whole\nsystem of RTI needs to get stricter and more effective by setting out the\nnumber of cases an information officer should attend to every month\nmandatorily. This way even the public would know when to expect the hearing of\ntheir case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Lack of\nTransparency<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>It has been found out in a study that there is insufficient information\nin regards to their functioning on the websites of most of the information\ncommissions. The websites do not give information about annual reports are not\neven updated frequently. The websites of some of the information commissions\nare not even accessible. This is an astounding state of the information\ncommissions since they are legally required to submit the annual reports to the\nparliament\/state assemblies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other major problem that violates the right of\ntransparency of the people is the tendency of the PIOs to exclude information\nstating that it is exempt from being disclosed, even when such exemption has\nnot been given under the Act. The information to which people have a legal\nright is straight away denied to them, by the authorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Penalty not\nimposed on defaulting PIOs<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A penalty of INR 25,000 can be imposed on an erring PIO. However,\nthe same is either not imposed or very rarely imposed as compared to the total\nnumber of cases where the penalty was imposable. The essence of including a penalty\nin the Act thus gets violated as the same was included so that the cases do not\nget delayed and transparency pertaining to required information is upheld.\nHowever, all these provisions are being violated continuously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What do the Authorities\nsay?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The grievances under the act are not just limited to the\npeople. The authorities also have their side of the story where they explain\ntheir position. The authorities state that there is not enough staff to deal\nwith the rising number of RTI cases. Besides, people are mostly unaware of the\nprocedures to be taken under the act. The enter multiple queries in one form\nwhereas only one query can be taken perform. Also, there are too many personal\nqueries that are asked by the departments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>With such conditions of cases related to the <a href=\"https:\/\/rtionline.gov.in\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">RTI<\/a> Act, it becomes questionable as to\nwhether the Act is serving its purpose. People have to wait for years to get\ntheir case heard and on top of it, they are denied information to which they\nhave right &ndash; partly or wholly. The question, therefore, arises &ndash; where is the\nsystem lacking? Is it the legislation or the authorities? The facts clearly\nstate that the authorities need to come in form and more stringency in their\nworking needs to be applied. The websites of the information commissions need\nto be updated and transparency should be upheld in the cases that they take. The\npeople also need to stay updated with the various procedures under the Act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For more information on applications under the RTI Act, the\nformat of the application, the office where the request is to be made, contact\nus at <a href=\"https:\/\/enterslice.com\/\">https:\/\/enterslice.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Right to Information Act, 2005, is often termed as one of the most ground-breaking legislation passed in Independent India. It has come out to be very powerful legislation in the hands of citizens of India. The main objective of this Right to information (RTI) was to provide the Indian citizens with the facility of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2438,2404],"tags":[2518],"acf":{"service_id":"215"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v14.6.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Background and Typical Obstacles Faced in Filing RTI - Enterslice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Responsibility in the workings of all the public authorities. 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