INTRODUCTION

The Right to Information (RTI) Act is a law enacted by the Parliament of India to provide for
setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens. It was passed by Parliament
on 15 June 2005 and came fully into force on 13 October 2005. The RTI Act mandates timely
response to citizen requests for government information. It applies to all States and Union
Territories of India, except the State of Jammu and Kashmir, which is covered under a State-
level law.
The Act relaxes the Official Secrets Act of 1889 which was amended in 1923 and various other
special laws that restricted information disclosure in India. In other words, the Act explicitly
overrides the Official Secrets Act and other laws in force as on 15 June 2005 to the extent of
any inconsistency.
Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen (excluding the citizens within J&K) may request
information from a 'public authority' (a body of Government or 'instrumentality of State') which
is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public
authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to proactively publish certain
categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information
formally.
The RTI Act specifies that citizens have a right to: request any information (as defined); take
copies of documents; inspect documents, works and records; take certified samples of materials
of work; and obtain information in the form of printouts, diskettes, floppies, tapes, video
cassettes or in any other electronic mode.
Prior to the Act being passed by the Parliament, the RTI Laws were first successfully enacted
by the state governments of Tamil Nadu (1997), Goa (1997), Rajasthan (2000), Karnataka
(2000), Delhi (2001), Maharashtra (2002), Madhya Pradesh (2003), Assam (2002) and Jammu
and Kashmir (2004). Some of these State level enactments have been widely used. While the
Delhi RTI Act is still in force, Jammu & Kashmir has its own Right to Information Act of 2009,
the successor to the repealed J&K Right to Information Act, 2004 and its 2008 amendment. 1
As stated in the charter of the governments Right to Information Act 2005, this RTI has been
defined as follows:

An Act to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens to
secure access to information under the control of public authorities, in order to promote
transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority, the constitution of a
Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions and for matters
connected therewith or incidental thereto.
RIGHT TO INFORMATION IN CONTEXT OF:

(a) for all stake holders :

The basic aim of the RTI act is to empower the citizens, promote transparency and
accountability in the working of the Government, contain corruption, and make our democracy
work for the people in real sense. It goes without saying that an informed citizen is better
equipped to keep necessary vigil on the instruments of governance and make the government
more accountable to the governed. The Act is a big step towards making the citizens informed
about the activities of the Government.

INFORMATION:

Information is any material in any form. It includes records, documents, memos, e-mails,
opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, Reports, papers,
samples, models, and data material held in any electronic form. It also includes information
relating to any private body which can be accessed by the public authority under any law for
the time being in force.

PUBLIC AUTHORITY:

A public authority is any authority or body or institution of self-government established or

constituted by or under the Constitution; or by any other law made by the Parliament or a State
Legislature; or by notification issued or order made by the Central Government or a State
Government. The bodies owned, controlled or substantially financed by the Central
Government or a State Government and non-Government organizations substantially financed
by the Central Government or a State Government also fall within the definition of public
authority. The financing of the body or the NGO by the Government may be direct or indirect.

RIGHT TO INFORMATION UNDER THE ACT:

A citizen has a right to seek such information from a public authority which is held by the
public authority or which is held under its control. This right includes inspection of work,
documents and records; taking notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records; and
taking certified samples of material held by the public authority or held under the control of
the public authority. It is important to note that only such information can be supplied under
the Act which already exists and is held by the public authority or held under the control of the
public authority. The Public Information Officer is not supposed to create information; or to
interpret information; or to solve the problems raised by the applicants; or to furnish replies to
hypothetical questions.

The Act gives the citizens a right to information at par with the Members of Parliament and the
Members of State Legislatures. According to the Act, the information which cannot be denied
to the Parliament or a State Legislature, shall not be denied to any person.

A citizen has a right to obtain information from a public authority in the form of diskettes,
floppies, tapes, video cassettes or in any other electronic mode or through print-outs provided
such information is already stored in a computer or in any other device from which the
information may be e-mailed or transferred to diskettes etc.
 The information to the applicant should ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought.
However, if the supply of information sought in a particular form would disproportionately
divert the resources of the public authority or may cause harm to the safety or preservation of
the records, supply of information in that form may be denied.

TIME PERIOD FOR SUPPLY OF INFORMATION:

In normal course, information to an applicant shall be supplied within 30 days from the receipt
of application by the public authority. If information sought concerns the life or liberty of a
person, it shall be supplied within 48 hours. In case the application is sent through the Assistant
Public Information Officer or it is sent to a wrong public authority, five days shall be added to
the period of thirty days or 48 hours, as the case may be.

APPEALS:

If an applicant is not supplied information within the prescribed time of thirty days or 48 hours,
as the case may be, or is not satisfied with the information furnished to him, he may prefer an
appeal to the first appellate authority who is an officer senior in rank to the Public Information
Officer. Such an appeal, should be filed within a period of thirty days from the date on which
the limit of 30 days of supply of information is expired or from the date on which the
information or decision of the Public Information Officer is received. The appellate authority
of the public authority shall dispose of the appeal within a period of thirty days or in exceptional
cases within 45 days of the receipt of the appeal. If the first appellate authority fails to pass an
order on the appeal within the prescribed period or if the appellant is not satisfied with the order
of the first appellate authority, he may prefer a second appeal with the Central Information
Commission within ninety days from the date on which the decision should have been made
by the first appellate authority or was actually received by the appellant. Part I
RTI AND THE PRESENT AMENDMENTS IN ISSUES:

The union minister for state of Personnel and Training V. Narayanswamy on August12, 2013
introduced The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2013 in Lok Sabha which was being
approved by the union cabinet on August 2, 2013.

IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF THE RTI (AMENDMENT) BILL, 2013:

1. The Right to Information (Amendment) bill, 2013 seeks to insert an explanation in

section 2 of the act, that any association or body of individuals, registered or
reorganized as political party under the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1951 will
not be considered a public authority.

2. Referring to CIC order of June, the bill also makes it clear that anything contained in
any judgment, decree or order of any court or commission will not affect the status of
political parties recognized under the Representation of the Peoples Act.

3. With a view to remove the adverse effects of the central information commission
decision, the bill states that it is necessary to give retrospective effect to the proposed
amendment.

4. The statement of objects and reasons of the bill, states that the government considers
that the CIC has made a liberal interpretation of section 2 (h) of the said RTI act in its
decision.

5. The statement of objects and reasons of the bill also points that there are already
provisions of other acts dealing with the transparency in the financial aspects of political
parties and their candidates.
CONCLUSION:

Now, at the end the researcher would like to conclude his project with a handful knowledge
about what is basically the Right To Information all about and the importance of transparency
in the running of the government and especially in a democratic government where people give
all their resources to these limited number of peoples and it is in their hands about how this
utilization could be. Earlier when people do not have any say in the extraction of information
related to the government but now its a win -win situation as it is made mandatory for
government officials to disclose certain basic information about their working under the suo
moto and even if they dont, the people have the full right to ask for it and with a fixed time
limit for reply and the penalty provisions on late reply give it a cutting edge over the other
previously implemented schemes. However, the scarce and underutilization of this act is a
worrying factor as only a limited use does not fulfill the scheme of the act whose major purpose
was the mass participation. RTI activists holds a Centre-stage due to this reason as their active
involvement makes certain powerful people vulnerable to their destruction as once their naked
face is exposed to the public their image gets tarnished .Hence , they take on RTI activists and
they are thus under continuous threat from a group of powerful peoples.

Overall, in a nutshell RTI is a very important tool for the people if its utilization is done for the
general public interest and most importantly for the backward and downtrodden who are not
able to avail the benefits of these governments measures.

Therefore, a reasonable conclusion that one can draw from these findings is that the RTI Act
is primarily being used to seek information that should actually have been provided without
being requested for, and without having to invoke the RTI Act. Only about a third of the
applicants were actually trying to access the type of information that they would not have
ordinarily been entitled to without invoking their fundamental right to information, as
facilitated by the RTI Act.