National RTI Awards

Orders on sale in UP Information Commission

UP Information Commission sells its orders at the rate of Rs 10 per order.

If you want copy of any order passed by UP Information Commission, it charges Rs 10 for each order. UP commission is the only commission in the country to do that. All commissions not only send copies of their orders to the concerned parties free of cost, they even upload them on their websites so that others could also read them and can know commission’s position on various issues.

The Act does not give any powers to the commission to charge money for copies of its orders.

Who authorized UP Commission to charge for its orders? When asked under RTI, the papers provided by UP Information Commission tell an interesting story.

The first document on record in this regard is a letter dated 17th July 2006 written by some Mata Prasad to Secretary to the Commission. The letter states that “as per oral orders of the Hon’ble Chief Information Commissioner”, the Commission has been providing certified copies of its orders at the rate of Rs 10 per page.

Subsequent is an order dated 7th August passed by the Chief Information Commissioner stating that copies of orders of closed cases shall be provided free of cost. Copies of ongoing cases shall be provided on payment of prescribed fee.

On 18th December 2008, Gyanendra Sharma, the then Chief Information Commissioner passes an order that court stamp of Re 0.50 need not be pasted for obtaining copies of orders. However, the fee of Rs 10 per order to obtain copies of interim orders would continue as earlier.

Where does the commission draw its powers to impose this fee? Can any commission or authority impose any fee on the public on its own? According to legal experts, you need statutory authority to impose any kind of fee.

RTI Awards Secretariat is analyzing the orders passed by all commissioners in the country. Barring UP and Jharkhand, it has received copies of all orders passed by the all other commissions in the last financial year. UP claims to have passed 22152 orders last year. It has demanded Rs 2,21,520 to provide copies of all orders! Did the Commission actually pass that many orders? When asked to provide a list of all these orders, the commission demanded Rs 33,300 to prepare that list! When asked to allow inspection of these files, the commission asked to deposit Rs 2,21,520 at the rate of Rs 10 per file for inspection. As per rules, inspection is free for the first one hour and then they can charge Rs 5 per 15 minutes. There is no rule to charge Rs 10 for inspection of each file.

One wonders why is the commission so desperately trying to keep its orders under wraps?