K.V. Sudhakaran, Commissioner for the Right To Information (RTI), has said that charging more than the prescribed fee for documents demanded under RTI cannot be allowed.
The Commissioner said for documents demanded as per RTI Act and for revenue certificates, the present fixed charges were not proper and the documents should be charged at ₹2 per page.
His statement came during the sitting here on Thursday.
He said that the Commission had noticed repeated cases of collecting unfair fees for RTI applications. Most of these complaints were against village, taluk and registrar offices.
He said that filing RTI petitions with the intent to disturb officials was not proper. He added that the applicant could only request information and documents that were with the officer, and that applicants should refrain from asking for unnecessary information.
Mr. Sudhakaran said this in view of a request made to the Kanichar panchayat seeking documents of construction work for the past 16 years. The commission considered eight cases at the sitting.
