WHEN Natubhai Barot of Prantij wanted to file an appeal before the District Development Officer (DDO) of Sabarkantha because he had been denied the information he had sought, the DDO asked him to pay Rs 50 as ‘‘appeal fee’’. That was on October 10.
The incident is not a singular one. There are other instances, too, where information officers have demanded Rs 50 as ‘‘appeal fee’’ whenever a member of the public has approached them for filing an appeal against information denial. But the rules framed by the State government for the implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act has not laid down any provision for ‘‘appeal fee’’.
Like the Prantij incident, the public information officer (PIO) of Surat collectorate asked Natavaralal Desai to pay Rs 50 fee with his appeal application in June; Primary Education Committee of AMC asked Narendra Upadhyay to pay Rs 50 as appeal fee in January; and Rajkot Municipal Corporation asked several applicants to pay the appeal fee in March.
According to State Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) R N Das, no fee is required to be paid for appeal. ‘‘There is no provision for any fee at the time of appeal. Under the RTI Act, only at the time of seeking information one needs to pay Rs 20 as fee. But that too has been exempted for those living below the poverty line (BPL),’’ said Das.
In another incident, the office of Jamnagar Superintendent of Police mentioned in its specimen form if the applicant had paid the appeal fee or not. Besides, the SP has prescribed a specific format for appeal.
But the rules framed by the State government say otherwise. Section 8 of the rule book says: ‘‘For the purpose of removing any doubt, it is hereby clarified that the form as prescribed under these rules needs not be an authorised preprinted stationery but any format neatly typed, hand-written or any electronic form which covers essential details prescribed in the form shall be valid.’’
The RTI is now one year old, but such teething problems still persist at certain levels where fees are demanded or prescribed forms are insisted upon.
According to Harinesh Pandya of Gujarat Right to Information Initiative (GRII), during the formulation of draft rules for RTI, Rs 50 as appeal fee was suggested but while finalising the rules that proposed clause was done away with. ‘‘But the government has not communicated the final rules effectively to the officials concerned,’’ he said.
As a result, there is no clarity at the local level about whether any fee to be charged and whether any format other than the prescribed one is valid. So much so that in September, the Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) had to write a letter to the State CIC seeking his opinion on the appeal fee.
At the time of initiating the implementation of of the RTI Act, the government had made Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration (SPIPA) as the nodal agency to train government officials on the functions of the law. But problems started when those senior officials who got training at SPIPA did not impart the same to their subordinates.
According to Rahul Mangaokar, an RTI activist, those who have been trained at SPIPA have not provided training to their subordinates. ‘‘Trickling down of training is not happening in the State,’’ he said.