CONDITIONS AND RELAXATION FOR SUPPLY OF INFORMATIONS TO ASSOCIATIONS AND THE BPL CATEGORY.

The RTI Act 2005 gives the Right to information only to the citizens of India. It doesn't make provision for giving information to Corporations, Associations, Companies etc, which are legal entities/persons, but not citizens. However, if an application is made by an employee or office bearer of any corporation, Association, Company, NGO etc, indicating his name and such employee /office bearer is a citizen of India, information may be supplied to him /her.In such caes, it would be presumed that a citizen has sought information at the address of the corporation, etc. Further, if the applicant belongs to the below poverty line (BPL) category, he is not required to pay any fee. However, he should submit a proof in support of his claim, as belonging to the below poverty line category. The application not accompanied by the prescribed fee of rupee ten or proof of the applicants belonging to below poverty line category, as the case may be, shall not be a valid application under the Act. It may be pointed out that there is no bar on the public authorities to supply information in response to such applications. However, provisions of Act would not supply to such cases. Further a citizen has a right to inspect the records of a public authority, for inspection of records, the public authority shall charge no fee for the first hour, but a fee of rupee five for each subsequent hour (or fraction thereof) shall be charged. The RTI has overriding effect vis-a - vis other laws. It implies that if any of the provisions of the RTI Act are not consistent with any other law for the time being in force including the official Secrets Act,1923 , the provisions of the RTI Act would have effect.