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PIL in High Court seeks online RTI portal for Gujarat

Although the Centre offered its support in 2013 for setting-up the portal, state govt yet to decide on it

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A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Gujarat High Court seeking its direction to the state government for developing an online portal for RTI applications and information dissemination, a feat already achieved by the union and several state governments. The petitioner, a practising lawyer and chartered accountant Bandish Soparkar, has also demanded imposition of fine on the officials who have failed to set-up the portal despite the union government extending its helping hand to the state in 2013.

According to the petitioner, a person seeking information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act in Gujarat has to make a physical application and cannot do so through any electronic means. Also, the applicant will have to obtain a postal order by visiting the post office and paying the requisite fee for such an application. Then the applicant is supposed to send the physical application to the concerned department. It is Soparkar's contention that the RTI Act has mandated every public authority to maintain the data in electronic form, but the Gujarat government has not set-up an online RTI portal.

After the Act came into force in 2005, the union government in 2013 developed the RTI Online portal through which citizens can seek information from the Centre and its establishments.

The portal also provides the facility to the applicants to pay the application fee online and has greatly simplified the process for information gathering under the Act. After the success of the portal, the Centre asked chief secretaries of all states to explore the feasibility of implementing similar portals in their respective states.

It was also clarified to the states that National Informatics Centre (NIC) will provide the technical support to the states in doing so by providing the software and source code. It is the contention of Soparkar that after the Centre's request, states like Maharashtra and Delhi have already developed such portal, whereas Gujarat is yet to do so.

Meanwhile, following a brief hearing on the issue, the division bench of chief justice R Subhash Reddy and justice VM Pancholi ordered the petitioner to serve a copy of his petition to the state government and adjourned the hearing on the issue till October 16.

RIGHT STEP

After the Act came into force in 2005, the union government in 2013 developed the RTI Online portal through which citizens can seek information from the Centre and its establishments.

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