The Central Information Commission (CIC) has expressed great concern over fake applications being made under the Right to Information (RTI) Act in the name of others, including known RTI activists. The commission asked the government to urgently come up with guidelines for dealing with such petitions.
The remarks were made in its order as it disposed of a petition filed by RTI activist Subhash Aggarwal. The latter had complained about his name being misused while filing a fake application with the Lok Nayak Hospital in Delhi. Aggarwal approached the CIC after he was flooded with responses from the Lok Nayak Hospital and other hospitals, despite not having made any RTI plea before them.
The CIC also observed that the petitioner had a similar problem with a fake complaint against an officer working at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Aggarwal claimed that someone issued a legal notice for defamation based on a complaint made in his name.
The Commission noted in the order that the petitioner, by virtue of his vast experience both as an activist and an RTI consultant, has made certain suggestions to deal with such fake petitions, which include making it mandatory for the person filing an RTI plea to provide an affidavit and an ID proof that he has signed.
It also said that the principal information officer at the Lok Nayak Hospital could have at least insisted on a signature on the RTI application.
"The PIO of Lok Nayak Hospital should not have forwarded the unsigned application to various hospitals in Delhi without realising the possibility of huge wastage of money and papers... Every alert PIO or public authority has to suspect such unsigned letter and also examine the viabiliy of information sought," the CIC said in its order.
There should be a focussed effort in tackling fake applications which harass both the genuine applicants and public authorities, the CIC said. It recommended to the DoPT, the nodal department for RTI, to consider the suggestion to prepare an office memorandum with specific guidelines for the PIOs to deal with such fake RTI applications.
