Amend RTI Act to allow appeal: CIC

Chennai: Chief Information Commi­ssioner (CIC) K.S. Sripathy feels the Right to Infor­mation (RTI) Act needs to be amended to incorporate a provision for appeal by petitioners.

Speaking to the Deccan Chronicle on the sidelines of an RTI awareness seminar organised by South India Hire Purchase Asso­cia­tion in the city on Satu­r­day, he noted that those who asked for information under the Act had no avenue for appeal currently.

“The verdict of the CIC is final and the aggrieved petitioner cannot proceed fur­ther. This aspect of the Act needs to be amended as even courts have no right to allow an appeal at present,” he said

Asked if other sections of the Act needed attention as well, he said the legislation had a lot of grey areas which needed to be chan­g­ed as it was merely a decade old.

“Several matters are with the Supreme Court and we are awaiting its order, particularly related to political parties coming under the RTI ambit,” he added, suggesting that those who wanted information on the income of national political parties with state units should approach the Central Information Com­mi­ssion for help.

Sripathy advised petitioners to be more aware when using the RTI to avoid delays.

“Several petitions are not properly addressed to the concerned public information officer causing unnecessary delay. Almost all government websites, inc­lu­ding the commission’s site, list the PIOs and appellant authorities,” he pointed out.

Clearing the confusion about the jurisdiction of central and state information commissions, Srip­athy pointed out, “Many petitioners think the Ce­ntral Information Co­m­m­issioner is superior to the State information Com­mission but that is not true. The Central Infor­mation Commission’s or­ders are not binding on us.”