Hi Friends,
Please go through the Office Memorandum:
N0.12/9/2009-IR
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions
(Department of Personnel and Training)
******
North Block, New Delhi
Dated the 24th May, 2010
OFFICE-MEMORANDUM
Subject: Payment of fee under the Right to lnformation Act. 2005 - scope of
sub-section (3) of Section 7 of the Act.
******
The Undersigned is directed to say that a question is raised
from time to time whether a Public lnformation Officer (PIO) has power to
charge fee under Section 7(3) of the RTI Act, 2005 in addition to fee
prescribed under Sections 6(1), 7(1) and 7(5) of the Act.
2.Section 6(1) of the Act enables the Government to prescribe application fee
and sub-sections (1) and (5) of Section 7 to prescribe fee in addition to
application fee for supply of information. On the other hand sub-section (3) of
Section 7 provides the procedure which a PI0 has to follow for realizing the
fee prescribed under sub-sections (1) and (5) of the Section. Details of fees
that can be charged by a public authority under the Central Government are
contained in the Right to information (Regulation of Fee & Cost) Rules, 2005.
The Rules or the Act do not give power to the PI0 to charge any fee other than
prescribed in the Fee and Cost Rules. Attention in this regard is invited to
following extracts from the common order passed by the Central Information
Commission in Appeal No. CI/MA/A/2008/0185 (Shri K.K. Kishore Vs. Institute of
Company Secretaries of lndia) and Complaint No.CIC/WB/C/2007/00943 (Shri Subodh
Jain Vs. Dy. Commissioner of Police) :
"The Act under proviso to sub-section (5) of Section 7 also provides that fee
prescribed under sub-sections (1) and (5) of Section 7 shall be reasonable and
no such fee shall be charged from the persons who are below poverty line as may
be determined by the Appropriate Government. The Government has already
prescribed fees as deemed reasonable mandated under Sections 7(1) and 7(5) of
the Act and in the view of the Commission, there is no provision for any
further fee apart from the one already prescribed under Sections 7(1) and 7(5)
of the Act".
"Thus, there is provision for charging of fee only under Section 6(1) which is
the application fee; Section 7(1) which is the fee charged for photocopying
etc. and Section 7 (5) which is for getting information in printed or
electronic format. But there is no provision for any further fee and if any
further fee is being charged by the Public Authorities in addition to what is
already prescribed under Section 6(1), 7(1) and 7(5) of the Act, the same would
be in contravention of the Right to Information Act. The "further fee"
mentioned in Section 7(3) only refers to the procedure in availing of the
further fee already prescribed under 7(5) of the RTI Act, which is "further" in
terms of the basic fee of Rs.10/-. Section 7(3), therefore, provides for
procedure for realizing the fees so prescribed".
3. The Commission, while delivering decision in above cases, recommended to
this Department to make rules, for charging fee towards supply of information
which may include fee for supply of books, maps, plans, documents, samples,
models etc. that are priced and towards postal/courier charges for mailing
information, when postal/courier charges are in excess of minimum slab
prescribed by the Department of Posts and for other similar situations.
4. The Right to Information (Regulation of Fee & Cost) Rules, 2005 already
provide provisions for charging of fee for giving information in diskettes or
floppies or in the form of photo copy; for providing samples, models, printed
material like books, maps, plans etc; and for inspection of records. The
Government have, however, not considered it desirable to charge fee towards
expenditure involved in mailing information or overhead expenditure etc.
Nevertheless, supply of information in a form which would disproportionately
divert the resources of the public authority is taken care of by Section 7(9)
of the Act according to which information shall ordinarily be provided in the
form in which it is sought but supply of information in a particular form may
be refused if supply of information in that form would divert the resources of
the public authority disproportionately.
5. It is hereby clarified that where a Public Information Officer takes a
decision to provide information on payment of fee in addition to the
application fee, he should determine the quantum of such fee in accordance with
the fee prescribed under the Fee and Cost Rules referred to above and give the
details of such fee to the applicant together with the calculation made to
arrive at such fee. Since the Act or the Rules do not provide for charging of
fee towards postal expenses or cost involved in deployment of man power for
supply of information etc., he should not ask the applicant to pay fee on such
account. However, wherever supply of information in a particular form would
disproportionately divert the resources of the publicauthority or would be
detrimental to the safety or preservation of the records, the PIO may refuse to
supply the information in that form.
6. Contents of this OM may be brought to the notice of all concerned.
(K.G. Verma)
Director
Download the full version from:
http://persmin.gov.in/WriteData/CircularNotification/ScanDocument/RTI/12_9_2009-IR.pdf
With regards,
Gopalakrishnan
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