UJAS DHARAMSHI (Corporate Lawyer) 02 February 2010

RTI Act: How would an appeal be preferred under RTI?

Hello Collegues,

I had filed a RTI application on 4/1/2010 to SEBI asking for procedures, policy, facts for a company takeover of GTB Bank by OBC, I being a shareholder.

I have just asked for information and not any documents. On the same day SEBI mailed me that you have to pay processing fee or else application will be terminated.

I replied to e-mail asking for clarification of processing fee as I had not asked for additional documents or annexures. I had just asked solely for information and no extra documents. Its almost a month. Neither any e-mail not any registered post from SEBI has been received by me inpsite of choosing reply by reg. post.

What is this processing fee and how to move further to extract information from SEBI. Would an appeal lie? It owuld be highly Appreciated if replied.

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3 Replies

niranjan (civil practice) 02 February 2010

though you have not asked the documents,but the information may be in the documents itself,so you should have asked them how much.Since you have not complied with their instructions and their reply does not amount to denial you cannot appeal.the provision ofappeal in the act is to the higher authority,in this case it could be to the govt.

UJAS DHARAMSHI (Corporate Lawyer) 02 February 2010

However when their reply through e-mail was received by me, I replied them thourgh e-mail asking for calrification about the processing fee and how much the processing fee would be charged. i was willing to pay it, but no reply has come since last month from 4/1/10. I asked what is processing fee and I have not applied for any extra documents.

Also there is no mention of any extra processing fee in the RTI Act. If any, they ought to had replied me again through e-mail, which they failed.

So what can be done?

Dayanandan P T (Service) 03 February 2010

Actually, alongwith the RTI Act, there is "The Right to Information (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules, 2005 made by the The Central Government under Section 27(2) of the RTI Act. The Rules 4 and 5 gives the details of the fees payable to the Public authority like Rs.2 per page etc.

Kindly refer to the same.