Indian Express: Chandigadh: Thursday, October 02, 2025.
“Individual State Public Information Officers will be held responsible for any penalties or adverse observations made by the Commission in such cases,”
The Haryana government has directed all State Public Information Officers (SPIOs) posted in the Haryana Civil Secretariat to strictly accept and process Right to Information (RTI) applications transferred by the RTI Cell, Office of the Chief Secretary. A letter in this regard was issued by Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi Wednesday.
“The directive comes in response to repeated instances where certain SPIOs have been refusing to accept such applications, despite the matters clearly falling within their jurisdiction. This practice has been seen as a violation of the spirit of the RTI Act, 2005, and detrimental to the transparency framework. As per Section 6(3) of the RTI Act, if an application pertains to another authority, the concerned SPIO is required to transfer it directly to the relevant officer, rather than returning it to the RTI Cell,” Rastogi said.
He added that the government has warned that any future refusal by SPIOs to accept transferred RTI applications will be taken seriously and may be reported to the State Information Commission under Section 20 of the RTI Act. “Individual SPIOs will be held responsible for any penalties or adverse observations made by the Commission in such cases,” he added.
The letter mentioned that the directive must be implemented in letter and spirit, without exception, to uphold transparency and accountability in governance.