Wronged under Right To Info? Just sue govt

The right to information (RTI) law can be used to sue the government for inadequate service if it can be proved in a consumer court that the delay in providing information caused loss.

Updated on: May 17, 2013, 01:56:14 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The right to information (RTI) law can be used to sue the government for inadequate service if it can be proved in a consumer court that the delay in providing information caused loss.

This was the view of three different consumer courts who awarded compensation to right to information users for delay saying that the applicants were consumers of the government since they paid a fee and furnishing information within 30 days was, therefore, a service.

A district consumer forum in Tamil Nadu awarded Rs. 5,000 compensation to N Arasakumaram, who had filed an right to information application relating to answers in a test for recruiting teachers, a delayed response to which cost him a government job.

In second case, a Chennai consumer forum held the public information officer of Tamil Nadu State Information Commission liable for “deficiency of service” for failing to provide information. He was asked to pay a compensation of Rs. 5,000 to right to information applicant B Ramesh.

The third case is from Pune consumer forum which asked the Maharashtra Directorate of Technical Education to pay compensation of Rs. 10,000 to right to information applicant KR Kakade for delay in providing information. Kakade had sought information regarding his employment with the institute but failed to get any response.

Such consumer court orders may open a Pandora’s box as any unsatisfied RTI applicant can now file petitions against public information officers and seek compensation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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