Assistance in Inspection under RTI Act 2005

Assistance in Inspection under RTI Act 2005

Normally PIOs or First Appellate Authorities refuse to permit assistant of choice of applicant during inspection.

Section 7.4 of RTI Act states as under:

“Where access to the record or a part thereof is required to be provided under this Act and the person to whom access is to be provided is sensorily disabled, the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, shall provide assistance to enable access to the information, including providing such assistance as may be appropriate for the inspection.”

As per this section, PIO is duty bound to himself provide assistance in inspection and also to ensure that applicant gets other appropriate help as may be necessary to enable applicant to effectively and meaningfully inspect records.

I quote following decisions and judgement where in Information Commissioners and Hon’ble High Court have permitted assistance of a person of choice of appellant or complainant.

Central Information Commission

CIC/SG/C/2010/901000/9908Adjunct dated 13-12-2010.

CIC/AD/C/2011/001639 dated 05-12-2011

CIC/WB/A/2007/00692-SM dated 15-10-2008. I reproduce relevant paragraph from this decision:

“4. The Section 7(4) of the RTI Act provides that the CPIO should give assistance to those Applicants who are sensorily disabled, so that they can have access to the desired records. It is true that the Applicant is not sensorily disabled. It is also true that the Ordinance Factory, Kanpur in general and the CPIO in particular have already provided a lot of information contained in those two files concerning the Applicant’s case. Nevertheless, in view of the Applicant’s admission that he is not properly educated and that he can understand documents only with the help of outside assistance, I tend to interpret the expression ‘sensorily disabled’ more wildly to include illiteracy or inadequate education and, therefore, to be ground enough for grant of permission to use or get the help of an assistant for inspecting or accessing the records. In view of this, the First Appellate Authority and the CPIO are directed to allow the Appellant to inspect the relevant records with the help of an assistant and in the presence of a representative of the CPIO within 15 working days from the receipt of this order.”

Relevant extract from judgment dated 16-11-2007 of Hon’ble High Court of Delhi in W.P.(C) 8228/2007—Suresh Gupta v/s Dy.  Commissioner of Police and another:

“9. If the petitioner, for some reasons, felt inhibited due to his not being fluent in English, denial of appropriate assistance in fact would have resulted in withholding access to information. Surely, that is not the object of the Act or even the order. In these circumstances, the respondents should grant the petitioner's request. Accordingly, the respondent No.1 is directed to permit inspection of the concerned records by the petitioner, who can be accompanied by his counsel or an authorized representative.”

Thus information seeker is entitled to inspect records with the help of a person of his choice, if he has any infirmity which does not enable him to effectively inspect records and understand its contents. PIO and FAA would be violating provisions of RTI Act, CIC decisions and judgment of Hon’ble High Court, if they deny such assistance in inspection under RTI.

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