Times of India: Chennai: Saturday,
April 12, 2014.
Seeking
information under the Right to Information Act from the Madras high court has
become expensive, as applicants have to pay 100 to get information from the
court.
The high
court has also decided that copies of order/decree/judgment/documents on the
judicial side will not be issued under RTI Act.
This, despite
a letter from department of personnel and training (DoPT) dated April 26, 2011
asking chief secretaries of all the states, registrars of all high courts and
registrar of the Supreme Court to charge Rs 10 from RTI applicants as fee, as
laid down in the Act
On April 4,
registrar-general of the Madras high court said RTI rules of the court had been
amended as per the powers conferred by section 28 of the Act, on the
instructions of the acting chief justice of high court.
"The
application requiring copy of records (except order/decree/judgment/documents
on the judicial side) shall accompany, in addition to the application fee, a
sum of Rs 100 towards cost. If the actual cost of charges for information
exceeds Rs 100, then the same would be intimated to the applicant and the copy
of information would be furnished on payment of excess amount", it said.
The
notification has stated that information provided in a diskette or floppy will
cost Rs 50. It also said information sought by the applicant in respect of
copies of order/decree/judgment/documents on the judicial side can be obtained
as per procedure prescribed in the high court rules.
RTI activists
are upset with the high court's rules. V Gopalakrishnan, an RTI activist, says
there's no provision in RTI Act to charge advance payments or to exempt any
subjects from the purview of the Act by the court. "The new amendments
would affect transparency, purpose" he said.
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