Mizoram govt. accused for non-compliance of RTI rules

Aizawl, Oct 13 (UNI) The Mizoram government has been accused of not following rules of the Right to Information Act (RTI) for supplying information to the public.

A retired IAS officer, S L Sailo, has despatched a letter to the Chief Information Commissioner of Mizoram complaining about the RTI rules the government had drawn up and has requested the commission to review the rules and scrap those not conforming to the RTI Act 2005.

He alleged that the rates fixed by the government were not reasonable and did not conform to the Representation clause under Section 18 of the RTI Act.

Mr Sailo pointed out that while people can photocopy an A4 size sheet for one rupee in the market, the rules had instead fixed the rate as Rs 2 from people that the information is furnished to.

He also complained about the charges levied by the rules for making appeals, as according to the rules framed by the Mizoram government, an appellant has to pay Rs 40 for a first appeal and Rs 50 for a second appeal. But it is contrary to the RTI Act Section 19 (1) which does not mention any fee for an appeal, he added.

Mr Sailo further charged that under Section 4 of the Act, a public authority has a responsibility to inform certain matters to the people and these outlined matters cannot be charged. However, the authorities here had neglected to make such information available to the public.

''The government, which is a public authority, had no right to ask for charges when information is sought for in the matters mentioned under section 4 of the RTI Act'', he stated.

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