RTI: Should an application deal with only one subject?

How may subjects can be covered while seeking information in a single RTI application? The answer is a constant bone of contention between the government RTI activists across the country. Since the enactment of RTI Act in 2005, many state governments have notified rules and then there are high court RTI rules which apply within the states. For the union government, the department of personnel and training (DoPT) put a set of new rules on its website in December 2010. Activists, including the NAC working group on transparency and accountability, opposed these rules in one voice and put DoPT on back-foot. [caption id=“attachment_311474” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Government agencies are seeking that only one subject can be dealt with in one RTI application. Representational image.AFP”]  [/caption] The one constant in state rules, state HC rules and the proposed Centre rules is the rule pertaining to ‘one subject matter per application.’ It also figures in the list of RTI rules challenged in courts (A PIL in Bombay High Court which demands quashing of state RTI rules and a PIL in Supreme Court seeking suspension of Allahabad High Court RTI rules). What really is the problem with having one subject matter? Why has it initiated a tug of war between bureaucracy and activists? Before going further let’s see the two possibilities which arise once a public authority receives RTI application- a) the information sought in the RTI application may be with another public authority and b) the subject matter may be more closely connected with the functions of another public authority. When confronted with one of these situations, the public authority, as per the RTI act, is required to transfer the entire application or the part it deems appropriate for the other department to answer. But that’s where the debate starts. The often repeated argument of DoPT and state governments is that since the act requires a public authority to transfer the RTI application to another which can answer the queries better, which they say shows there is a provision of catering to one subject matter in the act itself. Also, the singular form used in the act, according to DoPT, suggests that the act requires an application to have request on one subject only. This, say RTI activists, is nothing but the department’s selective reading of the Transparency Act. The National Advisory Council working group on transparency and accountability wrote to DoPT demanding dropping of this rule. DoPT rejected this demand. Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), an NGO working for the cause of RTI opposes the ‘one subject matter’ provision. CHRI says that the reference to ‘such part’ of an application itself indicates that an RTI application may contain a request for information on more than one subject matter and that too which is held by another public authority. “Given this broad right of the citizen to seek information that may be held by at least two public authorities, the imposition of subject matter restriction through the Rules is clearly ultra vires of the principal Act,” says Venkatesh Nayak of CHRI. Justice AP Shah, former chief justice of Delhi High Court, called the rule ‘misconceived’. Firstpost has a copy of Justice Shah’s comments on the proposed DoPT rules in which he punctures the argument that since a singular form is used for each application, it means the Act requires an application to have requests on one subject matter only. He cites section 13 of the General Clauses Act, 1897 which states: In all central acts and regulations, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context, words in singular shall include the plural and vice versa. “The act has been enacted to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority and casts responsibility on every public authority to provide information unless it is exempt under the act. The interpretation suggested by the department tends to defeat the very purpose of the act,” Justice Shah had observed. Now to see what the courts hearing the PILs have to say on the ‘one subject’ matter, as it might define the future implementation of the act.