RTI Act – Timely intimation about payment of additional fee

F. No.12/31/2013-IR

Government of India

Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions

Department of Personnel & Training

North Block, New Delhi – 110001

Dated : 11.2.2013

OFFICE MEMORANDUM

Subject: Timely intimation about payment of additional fee under RTI Act 2005.

It has been brought to the notice of the Central Information Commission that some CPIOs inform the information seeker about the additional fee under sub section 7(3) of the RTI Act at the fag end of the thirty days period prescribed for providing the information under sub-section 7(1) of the RTI Act.

2.    The Central Information Commission in one of its orders has mentioned that while there cannot be any hard and fast rule about when exactly the intimation about the photocopying charges should be conveyed to the information seeker, it is implied in the prescribed time limit that the demand for the photocopying charges must be made soon after the RTI application is received so that the information seeker has time to deposit the fees and receive the information within the prescribed thirty days period. If the information sought is not voluminous or is not dispersed over a large number of files, computation of the photocopying charges should not be a time consuming task. As soon as the RT1 application is received, the holder of the information should decide about how much information to disclose and then calculate the photocopying charges so that the CPIO can immediately write to the information seeker demanding such fees.

sd/-

(Sandeep Jain)

Deputy Secretary