Indian Express: New
Delhi: Tuesday, September 24, 2013.
The full
bench of Central Information Commission (CIC) has mooted special RTI postal
stamps for the users of Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. The commission
feels these stamps would help reduce troubles faced by applicants in terms of
Indian postal orders (IPO) and court fee stamp.
While the
state government offices accept court fee stamps of Rs 10 denomination as
requisite fee, applicants have to use IPOs to pay the RTI fee. IPOs bring with
it the added cost of commission to the post offices that has to be borne by
applicants.
Many a times,
applicants receive their applications back as the IPOs are returned for being
wrongly addressed. Also, till the IPOs are not encashed the process of giving
information is not started by the public information office.
Delhi-based
RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal had filed a complaint seeking streamlining
of the RTI application fee process. Agarwal said in many cases applications are
rejected owing to the expiry of due date of IPOs. Despite clear instructions
from the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to accept RTI fee, many
post offices were not following norms, he said. Agarwal also highlighted the
non availability of IPOs in many of post office.
While hearing
the complaint, the bench of CIC comprising Satyanand Mishra, ML Sharma and
Basant Seth, agreed that applicants face problems in paying RTI application
fees. The bench observed the problems faced by applicants was in contravention
to the spirit of the RTI Act.
“The best
solution to address the fee-related problem is to issue RTI stamps of the
denomination of Rs 10 by the Department of Posts. It will be a time saving and
cost-effective step,” the bench observed.
Welcoming the
move, Mumbai-based RTI activist Bhaskar Prabhu said this would benefit applicants
in the long run. “The stamps should be applicable both in state and at the
Centre,” he said.
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