Are there any organization in Government not covered under RTI Act?

[senthil]

I wanted to know are there any exception by which any organizations are exempt from disclosure under RTI Act?

[Dr. Pathak]

Yes the intelligence agencies specified in the secound Schedule are not bound to make available the information.
The whole list can be read here: The Second Schedule

[crusader]

Does that mean that these organisations will never disclose any information, or is there some procedure by which the information can be revealed?

[Dr. Pathak]

By reason of their exemption, no citizen can approach for information the said agencies firstly in relation to any investigation, nor can they be compelled to disclose the information or the report or reports they may submit to the Government of India.

However, there is one exception to this exemption. This exception is about the request for information relating to corruption or human right violation. In the case of the former, the concerned organisation may be requested for the report furnished by it to the Government.


And, in the case of the later viz. the human right violations those organisations are bound to provide the information after obtaining the approval of Central Information commission. If the central Information commission is of the opinion that such report to the human right vioaltion shall not be disclosed, the intelligence agency need not respond to the request made by the citizen in this regard.

The decision of the central Information Commission where the disclosure of information is permissible, such disclosure shall be made within 45 days from the date of receipt of the request.

The decision made in this regard by the commission will be final.

[crusader]

I just saw the list, is the list final? I mean can there be more agencies of the Government which can come under this schedule?

[Dr. Pathak]

The cental Government May ammend the list of institutions specified in the schedule by inclusing additional agencies or omitting certain existing ones. The notification to be made in this regard shall be laid before the Parliament so that the Parliament may examine the appropriateness of the Government's action in deleting items or adding new items to the list of exempted list.

[irseindia]

are the courts exempted from this act .This appears to be view in maharastra where judiciary says that this act is not implimented in judiciary .No information regaring court cases are available except a site of mumbai high court .Ths site also does not give address of PIO

REcently there was news report in mumbai mirror that about 50 lacs cases are pending mumbai court & HON CJI has expressed unhappiness.how commomn man will get information

[Dr. Pathak]

Yes that is true.
You may like to read this news of RTI India here.
http://www.rtiindia.org/news/p2_articleid/25

[maneesh]

The RTI is applicable to court as well. If the supreme court of india is covered then high courts cannot escape RTI.
Yes there is small variance that the each court is supposed to frame its own rule for RTI act.
In case of Maharastra High court, the RTI rules is yet to be framed as appears from the news reports.
Once the rules are framed the court will provide information in terms of RTI act and RTI rules as framed by the court.

PS: Supreme Court of india have a section for RTI on main page.
Supreme Court of India

[irseindia]

Thanks RTI INDIA Administrator for reply .Just one more quarry.Is there any time limit for framing rules under the act as already one yr is passed & mumbai high court has not framed the rules

will it be proper to ask CJ of high court or CJI under RTI to give time frame for framing such rules under the act .IN present case ,not framing the rule is advantageous to courts & so they may indefinitely delay the matters