Rs 30,000 as fee for RTI reply leaves local activist confused

Manmeet Singh Gill

Tribune News Service 

Amritsar, March 22

The Government Medical College here has demanded Rs 30000 for providing information regarding post-mortem of patients suffering from mental illness, alleges Rajinder Sharma, a local RTI activist.

Sharma had filed an RTI application seeking information about the number of autopsies conducted on patients sent by Dr Vidya Sagar Institute of Mental health here during the last seven years. He had also asked for information regarding the causes of death of all these patients. 

The medical college forwarded the RTI application to its forensic department and directed it to furnish the information to the applicant. However, the department in its response to Public Information Officer (PIO) of the college wrote, “The information which the applicant has sought will be found after the scrutiny of voluminous record for which many days by the department staff will be taken. So, it would disproportionately divert the resources of the department thereby attracting Section 7(9) of RTI Act, 2005. So, to provide the asked information the applicant is required to deposit Rs 30,000 provisionally, which will be adjusted after calculating the final charges when the information is completed.”

The letter further reads, “To seek the information in the minimal possible time and with minimum charges it will be appropriate if the information is supplied to applicant by Director Dr Vidya Sagar Institute of Mental Health.”

“I have complained that hefty charges have been demanded just to discourage citizens from seeking information,” he said. The fee for information could be charged on the basis of number of pages in the reply. The department has invoked a clause which is not relevant to his application in any form, he added. He said he would file an appeal with State Information Commission as already there has been a delay of two months in supplying the information. 

Section 7 (9) of the RTI Act reads, “An information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question”. 

 RTI activist PC Bali said, “As per the law, the PIO cannot calculate cost on assumptions. The cost could be demanded within 10 days of receipt of application and after that the PIO has to supply the information free of cost.”