Section 8 of RTI Act 2005

[rishraM]

it's high time that the Section 8 of the Act is deleted .The custodian instead must seek permission from the CIC to with-hold any info. no govt official worth his/her salt shall ever part with the info howsoever silly the content may be.

[jiwateshwar]

Sir,
Sections 8 and 9 protect the citizens right to privacy. Imagine if they were to do away with the "third party" thing in RTI Act.

[ganpat1956]

Shifted to RTI General Discussions.

[DineshK]

Protection of one's privacy is equally important and should be maintained.

[rishraM]

Privacy just one of the many sub-sections in Section 8 of the Act. We are so far talking about right to info mainly from the govt department about the documents held in respect to decisions either already taken or being taken. The talk of indv privacy is at the moment seems to me is out of context. There is a strong case on the other hand to delete this section as the same is being put to gros misuse.

[karira]

Sec 8 and Sec 9 are necessary to "balance" the individuals right to information with other rights like "right to privacy", "right to intellectual property", "right to commercial confidence", etc...

[jiwateshwar]

Till date I have not felt the necessity for removal of Sec 8 or 9. Further more I see utter chaos if a removal was to happen.

[taurus]

Sec 8 is for the purpose of balancing the Right to info with various other rights.

[rishraM]

Dear friends
i see most of you are of the opinion that Sec 8 of the Act to remain. Let me put it in a different fashion:
Which of the sub-section in Section 8 in your view could be deleted?
pl express your view sub-section specific .

[ganpat1956]

Is the "whole" different from its constitutent "parts"? Those who have expressed their opinions on Sec. 8 & 9, have done so after duly taking into account the individual sub-sections as well.

[rishraM]

(j) information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person.

My stress is specially on Sec 8(i)(j). We have seen decision on DPCs etc even the CICs are a divided house. The govt officials are taking undue advantages to this sub-section to deny anything and everything. Once selection process / sceening proces is over and the list is out there could be no reason for the govt official to disclose the proceedings especially to the pesons affected. Your view please.

[jiwateshwar]

Still doesn't change my opinion of the matter! Maybe if you put up your case and the application which was put in by you, the members here could guide you as to how to make the information available to yourself. The thing that I learnt from this god-sent forum was "that mere filing of an RTI application is not sufficient to make the information available to you. It is almost like any civil or criminal suit where one has to fight for his right. In this, the way you format your application and present your queries disguised as references to documents plays a very very vital role"

[ganpat1956]

Originally Posted by rishraM

My stress is specially on Sec 8(i)(j). We have seen decision on DPCs etc even the CICs are a divided house.

To a casual reader, the different decisions on Sec.8(1)(j) may give an impression that the CIC is a divided house. But to call it so, they should have given dissenting decisions on the same appeal. Otherwise, it is not proper and fair on our part to call CICs a divided house. It should be remembered that each decision is over an individual appeal under varying circumstances--how it is put up and how it is argued.

[rishraM]

i think i need to go through the CIC's decisions on DPCs a few more times. I certainly would share my experiences with truth and request your advice to reframe queries . But my original submission on deletion of Sec 8 altogether and asking the custodian of info to seek guidance from the CIC may be critically discussed to give more teeth to RTI Act 2005.

[jps50]

There cannot be any right without reasonable checks and balances. Hence section 8 and 9 are important. I have posted blog on sec 8 at http://www.rtiindia.org/forum/blogs/...decisions.html. We should learn how to minimise or fight out its misuse by PIO. Some clarity of sec 8 will evolve with more decisions of CIC or judgements of courts.