Livemint: New Delhi: Friday, March
31, 2017.
The
applications under Right to Information (RTI) Act can be filed orally, minister
of state for personnel Jitendra Singh said on Thursday.
Section 6 (1)
of the Act provides that where RTI request cannot be made in writing, the
Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) or state public information officer (SPIO),
as the case may be, shall render all reasonable assistance to the person making
the request orally to reduce the same in writing, he said in response to a
written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.
The minister
was asked whether the government has taken or proposes to take any measure for
acceptance of RTI applications and providing their reply in Braille.
The
transparency law has provisions for citizens to file RTI request orally but
nodal departments for such matters in both the central and state governments
have not yet come out with rules and regulations in this regard, say civil
rights activists.
“Besides
filing RTI requests orally, the law makes it mandatory for the CPIO or SPIO to
provide all assistance to a sensorily disabled person in accessing the
information is provided under the Act. “But none of the nodal departments for
RTI matters at the Centre and in state governments have come out with rules and
regulations for this,” said Venkatesh Nayak, who works with Commonwealth Human
Rights Initiative, an NGO.
The RTI Act
empowers citizens to seek time-bound response from government department on
their query related to governance matters.