High Court: Telangana Government Can't Charge BPL Applicants for RTI Information

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court made it clear that the information under the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) must be supplied to the applicants belonging to the below poverty line (BPL) economic sector free of cost as per section 7(5) of the RTI Act 2005.

Justice T. Madhavi Devi of the Telangana High Court viewed that GO 454 dated October 13, 2005, issued by then undivided Andhra Pradesh government and later adopted by the Telangana government, could not override the RTI Act which was enacted by the Centre.

GO 454 establishes rules and the fee structure for information requests under the RTI Act. It outlines charges for applications, copies of documents, and information in various formats, including electronic media like CDs and DVDs, and specifies the fees for record inspections. The GO was silent on providing free information to the applicants belonging to the BPL families.

Justice Madhavi Devi was dealing with a petition filed by Gadipally Ganesh of Mahbubabad district challenging the demand by the public information officer cum gram panchayat of Narsimhulapet to pay around Rs. 6,000 for providing copies of the information sought.

Taking note of the non-allotment of Indiramma houses to eligible members, the petitioner had filed an RTI application seeking the beneficiaries list and their eligibility. The panchayat secretary agreed to provide information, but asked that the charges be paid for providing the copies of the documents, which were in large numbers.

Aggrieved with the demand of charges, the applicant approached MPDO office, the first appellate authority under the RTI Act, and then the Telangana Information Commission through mail. He received the same reply and approached the High Court.

The court directed the public information officer to supply the copies for free of cost to the petitioner.