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name sandeep talwar e mail d ramshatrugan state punjab district patiala sangrur i m ready to take the responsibility or rti Yes it is true , courtesy Rule 8 of recently notified Haryana RTI Rules 2009 , This is an indepth Analysis of recently notified Haryana RTI Act Rules , 2009 I request learned Members / Moderators to kindly give their views for benefit of others . Rule 8 of Haryana RTI Act Rules , 2009 —-it deals with Mode of serving Notice by Commission in Appeals under RTI Act . It reads “the Commission may serve notice to the persons concerned in any of the following modes , namely :– Notices sent by Regd Post , Speed Post and Courier are delivered after taking receipt of delivery from recepient and thus delivery can be proved . But in case of Notice sent by UPC Post , there will be no proof of delivery and it may have following implications amongst others :– 1 . PIO may deny receipt of notice . The Commission will penalize PIO for non-appearance and pass an Order against him . Commission’s Order will be promptly quashed by High Court on the plea of PIO that Notice never reached him or did not reach in time . The PIO will have nothing to lose as he will be defended by department at tax-paying citizens (read RTI Applicants) . What will happen to rights of Appellant / Complainant , is anybody’s guess . 2.Suppose the Notice from the Commission does not reach the Appellant / Complainant and thus he does not appear before Commission on date of hearing . The Commission is within its right to Pass an Order as per merits of the case . The Order of the Commission being final , with no review , the Appellant / Complainant is left with only one choice – a Writ Petition ! How many of citizens would (or rather can ) afford a writ petition . 3.“Courier or such other means “– what it means is that Commission may literally use any mode (efficient or not ) without getting approval from Competent Authority or the legislature – literally giving the Commission powers to make its own Rules in this regard which may not be always in interests of the Pubic . 4.With appointments of Information Commissioners being largely political in nature , the possibilities can be further enlarged . Under old Rules ( 2005) the SPIO was required to assess and inform the Applicant of required fee within 7 days of receipt of RTI Application . But now there is no such limit . Now it reads that fee assessed by the SPIO shall be intimated to the applicant “expeditiously” . He may inform you after , say , 25 days . The onus is then on the applicant to go running to SPIO to remit the asked fee so as to be eligible for claiming requested information within 30 days of receipt of application . Now if this is combined with mode of sending letters by PIOs (which is mostly UPC) , it will often translate into situations where though the information will take much longer than 30 days yet it will not be possible to hold SPIO responsible for the resultant delay . Rule 4(4) of Haryana RTI Act Rules , 2009 has been modified to dilute provisions of the original Act . Rules are made to sort out ambiguities and not create more of them (ambiguities ) . Rule 6 of Haryana RTI Act Rules , 2009 Now Appeal u/s 19 (and hence Complaints too ) have been made more technical with Rule 6 of Haryana RTI Act Rules , 2009 with statutory need for Index , Verification , Annexures , and a less learned common man may not be able to handle it without professional / expert help . Technicality is not illegal , yet it is desirable that masses are adequately educated before they are expected to behave like lawyers while approaching the Commission . The only positive part of Haryana RTI Rules 2009 is that the fee per page for supply of A4 / A3 document is now at par with that in other parts of country , that is Rs.2/- . Dear Admin, Can we do a statewise registration for the RTI Users Asso. Registration Numbers like JK000001 or PB000002 or HP000003 or HR000004 or DL000005 etc…. The serial no generated by the sys may be a running number but must prefix the state code with it. |
