NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday fixed a ceiling of Rs 50 for public bodies, including legislative assemblies and high courts, for providing information under the Right to Information Act. A bench of Justices A K Goel and U U Lalit also ruled that the government bodies could not charge more than Rs 5 per page for giving photocopies of documents sought under the Act.
It also ruled that public authorities could not force an RTI applicant to provide reason or motive for seeking information. The court passed the order on a batch of petitions challenging the rules framed by different authorities fixing their own charges for providing information under the RTI Act although the parent law says that only Rs 10 has to be charged from information-seekers.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioners, told the bench that the Allahabad HC charged Rs 500 per information under the RTI Act which was illegal and it was intended to discourage citizens from seeking information. He said as per the HC rule, an application for information should be for only one item, it should be accompanied by Rs 500 by way of application fee and that the citizen should pay Rs 15 for every page of information.
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