Demanding fee for information which has not been sought by the applicant
29 Sep, 2012Background
The appellant sought some information regarding the bill payment to Vocational Training Programme (V.T.P.) and assessing body. The Public Information Officer (PIO) gave certain information and asked the appellant to deposit amount of the xerox since the requisite information contained 5 – 10 thousand pages. On appeal, the First appellate Authority ruled that it is impractical to count the number of pages immediately & give exact amount of coping charges. However, charges may be approximately Rs. 20,000/- which may vary depending upon the number of pages to be copied during the passing of information to applicant.
Proceedings
The appellant stated that he had requested for providing list of VTPs whose bills have been paid and the amount thereof and list of those VTPs whose bills were pending and amount thereof, however the PIO had demanded exorbitant amount for providing photocopies of the records which was never requested by him. The PIO stated that payment of 287 bills of various VTPs had been made and thereafter the relevant records have been sent to the State Directorate for further action as the matter was under investigation.
View of CIC
The Central Information Commission directed the PIO to supply the list 287 VTPs whose bills have been paid and amount thereof with the further direction to supply the list of those VTPs whose bills have been sent to State Directorate. Further, the Commission advised the PIO to exercise care in future to ensure that timely and complete information as per records is furnished to RTI applicants.
Citation: Mr. Nathu Ram Porwal v. Ministry of Labour & Employment in Decision No. CIC/SM/A/2011/001860/BS/0160
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/681
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission