Applicants resent delay in information under RTI Act

Avneet Kaur

Kapurthala, June 28

Applicants seeking information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act in various cases with the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) Punjab RTI office are a harassed lot due to the delayed release of information.

Meanwhile, several applicants who had filed RTI a few months ago to get a copy of their previous Elementary Teacher Training (ETT) examination answer sheets, lamented that they had to do rounds of the office to get a reply to their application, the time for which had already been extended beyond the stipulated 30 days.

The Public Information Officer (PIO) is supposed to send the RTI reply within 30 days, but due to the negligence on the part of officers, information gets delayed.

An official of the SCERT, RTI Nodal Officer Maninder Singh, said: “We make sure to reply the RTI application within 30 days and every plea is dealt as a priority. It rarely happens when the reply to an application gets delayed, but in such a case we ensure a check and send the replies at the earliest.”

Amit, who filed an RTI on April 19 this year, seeking copy of his 2016 answer sheet of English and Social Studies examinations, said: “It is more than two months now and I have not received the reply to the RTI. I have filed the RTI as I am confident enough that I had performed well in the exams but still I have not got even passing marks. I wanted to figure out my mistakes and see if there is any problem with the marking.”

He said people facing charges wanted to prove their innocence through the RTI but the response gets delayed. Not providing information on time could create problems for many persons involved in various cases. This is sabotaging the right to information that pertains to right and liberty of a person.

“I have to appear for the ETT exam next month and I want the reply before that. If I get the copy, I can improve or challenge my results in case of any discrepancy in marking,” he added.