The Right to Information Act 2005, which covers the whole of India except the state of Jammu & Kashmir, came into force on 12th October 2005. It is being lauded as a landmark piece of legislation. Though some of the states already had a similar rule in place, this Act covers all central, state, local and panchayat government agencies. It encompasses the executive, judiciary and the legislature and if implemented well, it could herald an era of an accountable government leading to a ‘truly transparent and functional' democracy.

The Right to Information Act accords power to citizen of India to request access to information and binds the government to meet such requests. The information that can be accessed includes records, documents, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, accounts and data material held in any electronic form for any organisation that is associated with the government. Privately held bodies do not come under the ambit of this Act. Indian citizens have a right to inspect, take notes, print outs or certified copies or use any electronic medium to access this information. However, some areas of information have been exempted from this Act especially the ones that are put the security and integrity of the country at risk. These specific exclusions have been detailed in the Act under section S.8.

At the ground level, one or more existing officer in all government offices is designated as a Public Information Officer (PIO). Each public authority is expected to maintain records in an indexed, digitized manner to facilitate easy retrieval using the network or otherwise.

The modus operandi to seek information is a written request that needs to be made with the PIO or Assistant PIO, specifying the information sought. It is the responsibility of the PIO to provide assistance in recording their request for those who cannot write. The request has to be submitted along with a nominal prescribed fee of Rs.10 for a Central Government department request. The same fee has been decided independently for the state government departments and varies across states. People below the poverty line are exempt from paying the fees. It is incumbent on the PIO to acknowledge the receipt of the request and provide the information within 30 days of submission of a request. It has been stipulated that in certain special conditions the information needs to be provided within 48 hours in cases of emergency or within 45 days when intricate details are required. Inaction for 30 days after the receipt of the application is deemed as a refusal to share information. These applications can be submitted along with the required fees at any of the 629 post offices across the country. The list of these post offices is available at http://www.indiapost.gov.in/rtimanual16a.html.

To ensure implementation of this Act, a nodal agency at the center called the Central Information Commission has been set up. This consists of a Chief Information Commissioner and a maximum of ten Central Information Commissioners at a given point in time. All these officials are appointed by the President of India on the basis of recommendation of a committee that includes the Prime Minister among others. All the states have similar commissions known as the State Information Commissions. The central and state commissions have been entrusted with the responsibility of receiving complaints and inquiring into them. They also submit annual reports to the state or central government, as the case may be. In cases where the PIOs have been found to be lacking in discharging their duties, the central or the state commissions can levy penalty of Rs.250 per day, subject to a maximum of Rs.25000, on them.

Detailed information on the Act is available at http://rti.gov.in, where one can also track the status of requests and receipts. You can access the entire Act verbatim at http://persmin.nic.in/RTI/rti-act.pdf.