Madras High Court fixes Rs. 100/- as the application fee for filing RTI application
14 Apr, 2014The registrar general of the Madras high court has informed that using the powers conferred by section 28 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the RTI rules of the court have been amended. The said amendment has been done as per the instructions of the acting chief justice of Madras High Court. The Madras high court has raised the quantum of fee to be paid by the applicants to get information from the court. The high court has also amended the rules to specifically exempt copies of order/decree/judgment/documents on the judicial side from the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
- The application requiring copy of records (except order/decree/judgment/documents on the judicial side) shall accompany, in addition to the application fee, a sum of Rs 100 towards cost.
- If the actual cost of charges for information exceeds Rs 100, then the same would be intimated to the applicant and the copy of information would be furnished on payment of excess amount.
- The information provided in a diskette or floppy shall cost Rs 50.
- Information in respect of copies of order/decree/judgment/documents on the judicial side can be obtained as per procedure prescribed in the high court rules.
The amendment has been criticised by RTI activists who have alleged that there is no provision in RTI Act to demand advance payments or to exempt any particular type of information from the purview of the Act by any public authority.
On April 26, 2011, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had asked the chief secretaries of all the states, registrars of all High Courts and registrar of the Supreme Court to charge a uniform fee of Rs 10/- from RTI applicants as application fee. It remains yet to be implemented by them.
Readers may refer to the article – “Who would teach law to the High Courts of the country?” Link : http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/who-would-teach-law-high-courts-country-3313