Non-availability of Rs10 court fee stamps stumps RTI applicants

Never in his wildest dreams had RTI activist Chetan Kothari thought buying a Rs10 court fee stamp would be difficult. But after going three times to various courts, he finally gave up the chase. "I went to the high court, sessions court and the metropolitan court, but nowhere was I able to buy them," said Kothari.

Off late, the dearth of the stamp that is most in demand, has left RTI activists stumped. Though there are other means through which an application can be filed, doing it by pasting a stamp on the application is the most convenient and easiest for the applicants. Other options like giving cash, submitting a demand draft or Indian Postal Orders for submitting an application pose other technical difficulties.

"The problem in giving cash is you have to go to the cash counter and at times it is closed. Through court fee stamp, the process is faster," said SK Nangia, an RTI activist, who has held on to his application for over two weeks after having exhausted all the stamps he had.

"When you go there, they say they have only Rs1 or Rs2 fee stamps. But buying those is not feasible as one cannot affix many stamps on one application," said Nangia.

When contacted, BP Patil, registrar general, said, "I will have to make an inquiry into this. Normally, there are people around who are authorised to sell them, but I am not aware of this problem."