Frivolous questions

[avinash]

Hi,

While RTI is a powerful tool, it has also been misused by people on several occasions. The most common thing is to flood the organisation with useless queries. A classic example can be seen in CIC/OK/A/2006/00268-272 dated 29th December 2006 - decision of CIC - where an applicant has asked for tons and tons of information from the railways. For example, a) all records related to allocation of different services, all records regarding selected candidates of engineering services, c) all records related to regulation of railway staff... etc. According to the Commission, even a casual look ... would make it clear that the information asked for is frivolous and even bordering on the absurd".

I have a related question. Suppose an information is easily available from the official source; but the applicant does not want to obtain that information from that source. Can he/she ask for the same information under RTI? Here is an example. Applicant asks for information about the names and designations of all of officials of a certain department in a government body inspite of that fact that she is actually working in that department which consists of just 17 people for the past 12 years. Is the office bound to reply to the query? Most important, is there a CIC decision on this matter?

Thanks


Avinash Kapadia

[mpai]

Originally Posted by avinash

Hi,

I have a related question. Suppose an information is easily available from the official source; but the applicant does not want to obtain that information from that source. Can he/she ask for the same information under RTI? Here is an example. Applicant asks for information about the names and designations of all of officials of a certain department in a government body inspite of that fact that she is actually working in that department which consists of just 17 people for the past 12 years. Is the office bound to reply to the query? Most important, is there a CIC decision on this matter?

The applicant can definately ask for such information even if its available from the official source. Since the office has just 17 people there is no bar in giving the information, even if there are hundreds of staff in the office. Only the applicant has to pay for the information received. However, the case of the railways was different. It has lakhs of people in its payroll. So dont compare this with that of the railways.

Manoj

[karira]

The PA is obligated to publish such information under Section 4 , 1, b, ix) of the RTI Act.

Section 04: Right to information and obligation of Public Authorities

1.	Every public authority shall—

b.	publish within one hundred and twenty days from the enactment of this Act,—

ix.	a directory of its officers and employees;

[snkmoorthy]

sir, the applicant can certainly ask for information which is available from other sources also; the difference being that the information given by the information officer is authentic and official and can be accepted as evidence in a Court of Law. where as the evidence available from other sources lacks the authority. if the applicant asks for tons and tons of information, he or she can be invited to inspect the relevant documents containing the information. sec 7[9] provides forthis