Media has unnecessarily made mountain of a molehill on Gujarat University asking an RTI applicant to provide citizenship-proof. It is a court-ordered requirement verdict dated 02.11.2012 by Punjab and Haryana High Court in the matter -Fruit and Merchant Union vs Unknown (CWP No. 4787 of 2011)- (page 23) which should rather be followed by all public-authorities in Center and in states through notification to be issued by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT). Step will avoid filing of RTI applications in fake names and by ex-Indians having attained citizenship of other countries but by retaining Indian names. If RTI applicants want transparency from public-authorities, they should feel duty-bound by being disclosing their proof of ID.
Also RTI rules should provide common RTI fees of say rupees 50 inclusive of copying charges of first 20 copied pages in benefit of both public-authorities and genuine information-seekers. Thereafter no further fees may be there for filing First and Second Appeals.
Decisions and administrative orders of CIC should be implemented by postal-authorities by issuing special RTI stamps (on lines of erstwhile license-fees stamps for radio and TV sets) in denominations of rupees 2, 10 and 50 to save hugely on handling cost of postal-orders mainly used as mode of payment of RTI fees. Facility of sending post-free RTI applications should be introduced in all about 160000 post offices rather than just about 4500 post offices as at present. Postal Department then also can issue an RTI envelope costing rupees 50 as yet other simple mode of paying RTI fees without levying any additional postal-charges.
MADHU AGRAWAL