Akhil Chirravuri

Right to Information (RTI) is act of the Parliament of India to provide for setting out the practical regime of the right to information for citizens and replaces the erstwhile Freedom of information Act, 2002. Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen of India may request information from a "public authority" (a body of Government or "instrumentality of State") which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerise their records for wide dissemination and to proactively certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally.

 

 

This law was passed by Parliament on 15 June 2005 and came fully into force on 12 October 2005. Every day, over 4800 RTI applications are filed. In the first ten years of the commencement of the act over 17,500,000 applications have been filed.

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Information disclosure in India is restricted by the Official Secrets Act 1923 and various other special laws, which the new RTI Act relaxes. Right to Information codifies a fundamental right of the citizens of India. RTI has proven to be very useful, but is counteracted by the Whistleblowers Act.

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You can raise an RTI request either 'online' (provided there is a dedicated online channel for the information authority/office to whom/which you're willing to raise the request) or 'offline' (i.e. by visiting the office, sending a mail etc.)

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All RTIs related to Union Government, Parliament, PSBs, PSUs and all central govt. institutions could be raised online through All India RTI Online portal. Apart from Union Government and other National institutions which have online portals to file RTI requests, ONLY 2 state governments - Delhi & Maharashtra have Online RTI portals among 28 states and 8 Union Territories.