The RTI battle of the NRIs

The NRIs in the US have been leading a campaign for their right to use the Right to Information Act from abroad even as the government...

The NRIs in the US have been leading a campaign for their right to use the Right to Information Act from abroad even as the government admits their issue is complex and may need an amendment in the law.

Take the case of 73 young NRIs across the US who,on November 15,2007,jointly wrote to the Indian Embassy at Washington DC for information through RTI on the Nandigram violence. They wanted to know the death toll and access the correspondence between the state government and the Ministries of Home and External Affairs. Five days later,the Embassy sent a non-committal reply: The information is not available with us.

We tried to explain about the spirit of the Act and our difficult situation of not being able to file an RTI without the Embassys assistance,but to no avail, recounts Somasundaram Kumaresamuthusamy,one of the applicants.

Story continues below this ad

Or the case of Arun Gopalan,based in Montgomery Village in Maryland,who was asked to re-direct his RTI application on the annual water accounts of Narmada Basin to the Public Information Officer concerned.

I filed an RTI application with the Home Department,Government of Maharashtra. The application required a court fee of Rs 10,which I could not procure here in the US. My friend did not put the stamp on the appeal and as a result my appeal was not processed. Thus the lack of mechanism to pay fee from the US is a major hindrance to my ability to seek information, Los Angeles resident Vishal Kudchadkar informs Minister of Overseas Affairs Vayalar Ravi in a letter dated June 22.

NRIs,with meagre help from overseas public authorities,remain largely clueless on basic information required for filing an RTI application from paying the Rs 10 fee to keeping abreast of the different payment modes varying from state to state.

An RTI application filed with the Indian Embassy in the US by Commodore (retd) Lokesh Batra shows the downslide with only 44 applications filed in 2007,27 in 2008 and none till January 2009. The number of appeals filed with the Embassy is five in 2007,four in 2008 and none till January 2009.

Story continues below this ad

An October 6,2009,response by Debraj Pradhan,Central Public Information Officer and Joint Secretary,Ministry of External Affairs to Kudchadkar says,The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs informed that they did not have any information,the Department of Personnel and Training responded stating that no policy,rules,regulations and procedures exist under the RTI Act,2005,to facilitate NRIs to file RTI applications to public authorities in India from abroad.

Central Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah says NRIs can better participate in RTI if an amendment is made in the rules to name the Ministry of Overseas Affairs as the nodal authority to monitor RTI applications from NRIs. The applicants currently can file the application fee in the currency of the nations in which they reside. The applications can be submitted with the respective embassies,but a proper mechanism through the amendments has to be worked out for processing the requests. I found the MEA not the right authority to entertain applications, Habibullah says. But Vishal disagrees with Habibullah,and feels a simple gazette notification would do. Under Section 26 (3)(c)(h)(i) of the Act,the government is empowered to update guidelines on the manner in which requests for access to information shall be made to a Public Information Officer,the notices for fees to be paid and for any additional regulations or circulars. Hence the concerns of the NRIs can be addressed by a simple gazette notification, his e-mail to Pradhan on October 7 says. The DoPT now also says that the RTI Act would need an amendment for NRIs.