PIL in HC against fees charged under its RTI rules

Business Standard: New Delhi: Thursday, 19 November 2015.

A PIL by four law students seeking harmonisation of fees charged under high court's RTI rules and the parent Right to Information rules was taken up today by the Delhi High Court.

"This is an issue we need to deal with," a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath said and issued notice to the high court Registry seeking its response by January 20, the next date of hearing.

The plea by the law students has sought quashing of Rule 3 of Delhi High Court RTI Rules 2006, under which separate applications have to be made to access unrelated information. It said this provision was "inconsistent with the object and provisions of Right to Information (RTI) Rules".

The petitioners, including law student Aastha Sharma, have submitted that under Rule 10 of high court's RTI Rules, Rs 50 is the application fee and Rs five per page was the fees for photocopies of the information sought and have alleged that these amounts are "arbitrary, unreasonable and exorbitant" for the public at large.

The application fee under the parent RTI Act is Rs 10 and the fee for photocopies is Rs two.

The plea has said the RTI Act mandates that the fees should be reasonable and sought that the HC's RTI's rules be harmonised with the umbrella RTI Rules.

The law students have also submitted that there was "no express provision" under the high court's RTI rules "for providing access to information to citizens falling under the below poverty line (BPL) category free of cost" and have sought that such a provision should also be incorporated in the Rules.

They said they had moved the plea after they received no reply from the Registry to an October 4 letter sent in connection with the issue.