Business
Standard: Dharwad: Saturday, 13 December 2014.
The State
Information Commission has so far imposed a penalty of Rs 2 crore on the
government officials for failing to provide information sought under the Right
to Information Act, said Commissioner Shekhar Sajjanar.
Speaking at a
workshop on RTI Act organised by the State Information Commission in
association with the district administration here on Friday, Sajjanar said most
of the officers had to pay penalty due to their poor knowledge about RTI Act.
The
government officials should not consider RTI applications filed by the citizens
as a burden or punishment.
The RTI Act
came into force because the government officials failed to discharge their
duties properly. Under RTI, the government officials are duty bound to provide
the information. The officials need not face any problem if they specifically
tell the applicants whether the information sought by them was available with
them or not within 30 days of receiving the application.
Replying to a
query, Sajjanar said no limit was imposed on the number of applications to be
filed by the citizen. There was an instance of one citizen filing 2,000
applications under RTI Act in one day in Bengaluru. In case any applicant was
found to be filing the applications under RTI act with malafide intension the
officials have bring it to the notice of the Information Commission.
The officials
have to compulsorily read the request made by the applicant in the application
and ensure that the request does not cross 150 words. The application should be
either in English, Hindi or the local language.
The RTI has
empowered only the citizens to get all the information and not for the
organisations. Hence, if the application does not have name of the applicant or
is written in the name of the organisation, such applications can be rejected,
he added.
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