Supreme Court launches link for online RTI applications

On November 11, the court said it would launch online filing of RTI applications and first appeals, which were earlier required to be physically submitted to the Chief Public Information Officer

The Supreme Court has launched the online link for applications under the Right to Information (RTI) Act on its website. Announcing the decision in open court on Thursday, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud said, “The RTI portal is ready and will start working in 15 minutes.”

The Supreme Court. (ANI)

Minutes later, a press release said the link was active. The Supreme Court conducted a test run by activating the link on Tuesday.

On November 11, the court said it would launch online filing of RTI applications and first appeals, which were earlier required to be physically submitted to the Chief Public Information Officer.

The announcement was made as the court was hearing a public interest litigation of law students Akriti Agarwal and Lakshya Purohit for a mechanism to file RTI applications online in the court.

“In case there are any problems, you can get back to me. I will be more than happy to look into it,” said CJI Chandrachud, who is also the Chairman of the E-Committee of the Supreme Court.

The E-Committee has also introduced a facility for visually impaired to access the court’s judgments.

The CJI said the committee is working on providing more features for persons with visual disability and to allow equal access to documents filed digitally in court.

Justices Hima Kohli and JB Pardiwala, who were also part of the CJI led bench, asked senior advocate SK Rungta how he accesses the compilations other lawyers submit. Rungta, who is visually impaired, said, “I take it on pen drive and use it on my computer which has a braille output.”

The court asked Rungta to get in touch with the head scientist of National Informatics Centre to provide a compatible software to convert content to braille.