NEW DELHI: People seeking information under
RTI Act may now be able to use postal stamps as application fee if a
recommendation of the Central Information Commission is accepted by the
Centre.
Two Information Commissioners in two separate cases-- R K Jain
and Raghubir Singh-- have made a common recommendation to the Department of
Personnel and Training for implementing postal stamps as a mode
of payment of RTI fee thus reducing hassles of applicants.
RTI users now have to pay a fee of Rs 10
either in cash, bank demand draft or Indian Postal Order to get
information.
Some authorities like Army and Indian air
force refuse to accept applications drawn in favour of Accounts Officer
despite clear directives of the Department of Personnel and Training
causing hassles to applicants.
"The appellant has submitted that the postal department's
recommendation for use of ordinary postal stamps for payment of RTI fee
is both practical and user friendly. The Commission finds merit in the
appellant's submissions and would urge the DoPT to consider this at the
earliest.
"In this connection it is noted
that the government of Tamil Nadu has already allowed payment of RTI fee
by affixing court fee stamps, Information Commissioner Basant Seth said
in the matter of activist R K Jain.
Agreeing with Seth, Information Commissioner
Sridhar Acharyulu also issued an exhaustive order on the issue
recommending to DoPT to avail the opportunity of giving New Year Gift to
the citizens by permitting and publicising the use of ordinary postal
stamps for the payment of RTI fee.
"Accepting postal stamps for RTI fee
would resolve many difficulties in payment, besides preventing wastage of
public money in returning or rejecting the IPOs or spending much larger
amounts than Rs 10, for realising Rs 10, and avoidable litigation,"
he said.
Acharyulu said returning the IPO to the
appellant involves writing a letter on a white paper, covering in an
envelop, spending public office's time which could have been used for
some other productive work besides spending Rs 25 or Rs 30 for speed
post.
The case relates to applicant Raghubir Singh
whose application was rejected an year ago as it was not correctly drawn
in the favour of authority designated by the Directorate of Education,
Government of Delhi.
"In all the public authority will be
spending approximately Rs 35 to Rs 50. It will also cause unnecessary
expenditure for the appellant, who has already spend Rs 20 to get a
postal order for Rs 10. For returning and taking a different IPO he has
to spend again the same amount," Acharyulu said.
The Commissioner said spending Rs 50 to
reject the IPO worth Rs 10 on silly grounds would amount to wastage of Rs
50 plus Rs 60.
"By accepting to deposit the postal
order of Rs 10, they would be preventing expenditure of Rs 60 and use Rs
10," he said.
He said it is a misuse of the power of PIO to
reject to receive RTI application and the fee amounting to harassment of
the applicant.
"It is also a kind of denial of
information. Any kind of delay in furnishing of information on such
grounds, violates the letter and spirit of RTI Act on several
counts," he said.
Issuing a show cause notice for denying
information, the Commissioner directed all the PIOs of Public Authority
to submit separate reports to this Commission explaining how many IPOs
they have rejected so far and what are the grounds of rejection, from
January 2014 to December 10, 2014, within 15 days from the date of
receipt of this order.
