What is the percentage of frivolous RTI applications filed in the country?
9 Jun, 2014
In the backdrop of the statements made by former PM, Manmohan Singh earlier that the Right to Information (RTI) Act was misused and ‘vexatious’ applications were filed, a study was conducted by the Right to Information Assessment and Advocacy Group (RAAG) to quantify the vexatious applications filed. The study, "Who uses the RTI Act and for what?" was presented in the 'Western India RTI Convention 2014' at the Kalina Campus of the Mumbai University. Anjali Bharadwaj and Amrita Johri who conducted the study, started by defining a vexatious application as no such term has been defined in law. A study material consisted of nearly 4,000 appeals filed with the various State Information Commissions (SICs) across the country between 2005 and 2008. The study divided applications that can be labelled for ‘misuse’ under several categories and found that their percentage as under:
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vexatious or frivolous applications – 0.6%
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requiring voluminous response – 2%
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infringing privacy - 0.6%
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seeking information covering a long time span (more than 10 years) – 1%
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very lengthy application or asking too many questions or questions on too many topics, among others.
The study revealed that:
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54% applications were seeking information that ought to have been declared by the government on its own (indicating that public authorities are yet to implement section 4 of the RTI Act).
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Just a quarter of the applications (26%) asked for information that was not required to be disclosed proactively to the citizens.
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Nearly 20% applications were such that they did not require usage of the RTI Act.
The study found that the average length of the applications was 119 words, but after revised updates, it was 116.2 words. The official word limit is 150 words. Amongst the recommendations made by the study are:
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nomination of public information officer responsible for ensuring proactive disclosures,
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private sector be informed about their obligation to give information, and
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government to bring out a guide indicating what types of information can be accessed from private bodies under what provisions "any other law."