Applicant wins battle over fee

Times of india, chennai edition, Reporter:Jeeva TNN, 20/7/09, page no.2

Chennai: V Gopalakrishnan, a resident of K K Nagar who filed an RTI application with the Chennai Corporation a year ago, got a reply from the civic body only a couple of weeks ago, and that too after the Tamil Nadu State Information Commission threatened to penalise its information officer. The civic body has replied to the queries of the applicant regarding government land in his area that was allegedly allotted to an individual in an unauthorised manner, but it has also asked him to pay Rs 600 to provide him the copies of documents he sought, even though the RTI Act stipulates that information should be provided free of cost if a department fails to provide it within 30 days of the receipt of application. In fact, the Act also says that the information officer, in case of failure to reply to the application within the time frame, is liable to a fine of Rs 250 for every day of delay, subject to a maximum of Rs 25,000. However, Gopalakrishnan had the last laugh on Saturday when he got a copy of the 300-page document free of cost, after the state information commission directed the Chennai Corporation to do so. Though the Central information commission and the state information commission have passed numerous orders making it clear that information officers were not entitled to ask for the cost of information if they fail to reply within 30 days, most of the departments fail to comply while many are not even aware of it. Only when they give information sought by applicants within the time frame can they can ask for extra costs such as photocopying (Rs 2 per page), Rs 50 for CD or floppy, and the actual cost of a sample or model if it is being provided to the applicant.