Quiz 11 — RTI Act, 2005: Requests, Exemptions, Appeals & Commissions

The match is A-2, B-4, C-1, D-3, E-5. Section 15(3) has the State Commissioners “appointed by the Governor on the recommendation of a committee consisting of (i) the Chief Minister, who shall be the Chairperson of the committee”, the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly and a Cabinet Minister nominated by the Chief Minister. Section 17(1) permits removal for proved misbehaviour or incapacity only “after the Supreme Court, on a reference made to it by the Governor, has on inquiry, reported” — the Supreme Court, not the High Court. Sections 16(1), (2) and (5), as substituted by the RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019, leave the term and the salaries of State Commissioners to be “prescribed by the Central Government” (the RTI Rules, 2019 fix three years and ₹2,25,000). The headquarters, however, stays with the State: Section 15(7) places it “at such place in the State as the State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify”. (a) swaps D and E: since 2019 the Central Government, not the State Government, prescribes term and pay, while the headquarters remains a State Government notification; (c) swaps the Governor and the Chief Minister: the Chief Minister chairs the recommending committee and the Governor appoints on its recommendation; (d) makes both swaps.

Statements 2, 3 and 4 are correct. Section 2 of the RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019 (Act 24 of 2019, in force 24 Oct 2019) replaced only the words “for a term of five years from the date on which he enters upon his office” in Section 13(1) and (2) with “for such term as may be prescribed by the Central Government”; Rule 3 of the RTI Rules, 2019 (G.S.R. 810(E), 24 Oct 2019) then prescribed “a period of three years”. The amendment left untouched the Section 13(1) proviso that “no Chief Information Commissioner shall hold office as such after he has attained the age of sixty-five years”, and the second proviso to Section 13(2), under which, where an Information Commissioner is appointed Chief, “his term of office shall not be more than five years in aggregate as the Information Commissioner and the Chief Information Commissioner”. Present tenure is therefore three years or age 65, whichever comes first — there is still an age limit. Statement 1 is wrong because the three-year figure sits in the Rules, not in the Act. (a) leaves out statement 4, though the five-year aggregate proviso survived the amendment; (b) accepts statement 1, crediting the Act with a figure only the Rules contain, and drops statement 2; (d) includes statement 1.

(b) is correct: statement 1 follows Section 19(1), under which the first appeal lies to “such officer who is senior in rank to the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer… in each public authority”; statement 3 quotes Section 2(a)(i), which makes the Central Government the appropriate Government for a body financed or controlled “by the Central Government or the Union territory administration”; and statement 2 follows from it — the CIC's FAQ (Q30) says its jurisdiction covers public authorities of “the Central Government or the Union territory administration including NCT of Delhi”, so a DoE school's second appeal under Section 19(3) and complaint under Section 18 go to the Central Information Commission (Delhi has no State Information Commission under Section 15). Statement 4 is wrong: the CIC's FAQ (Q12) says “No fee is required to be paid alongwith the second appeal/complaint”; the ₹10 fee in rule 3 of the RTI Rules, 2012 is for an application under Section 6(1). (a) drops statement 3, which is the statutory basis for statement 2; (c) accepts the non-existent second-appeal fee and drops statement 1; (d) accepts the non-existent second-appeal fee.