GUIDELINES FOR DISPOSAL OF FIRST APPEALS UNDER THE RTI ACT, 2005 , AS CONSIDERED A QUASI-JUDICIAL FUNCTION.

Section 19(6) of the RTI Act provides that the First Appellate authority should dispose of the Appeal within thirty days of the receipt of the Appeal. In exceptional cases, the appellate authority may take forty-five days to dispose of the appeal subject to the condition that he shall record in writing the reasons for delay in deciding the appeal. Therefore, each First Appellate authority should ensure that an appeal received by him is disposed of with in thirty days of the receipt of the appeal. If, in some exceptional cases, it is not possible to dispose of the appeal within thirty days, its disposal should not take more than 45 days. In such cases, the Appellate authority should record, in writing, the reasons for not deciding the appeal within thirty days. (2) Deciding Appeals under the RTI act is a quasi-judicial function. It is, therefore, necessary that the appellate authority should see to it that the justice is not only done but it should also appear to have been done. In order to do so, the order passed by the appellate authority should be a speaking order giving justification for the decision arrived at. (3) If an appellate authority comes to a conclusion that the appellant should be supplied information in addition to what has been supplied to him by the PIO, he may either (a) pass an order directing the PIO to give such information to the appellant, or(b) he himself may give information to the appellant while disposing of the appeal. In the first case, the appellate authority should ensure that the information ordered by him to be supplied is supplied to the appellant immediately. It would however, be better, if the appellate authority chooses the second course of action and he himself furnishes the information along with the order passed by him in the matter. (4) The CIC has also pointed out that some of the Ministries/Departments have appointed very junior officers as appellate authorities, who are not in a position to enforce their orders. The Act provides that the first appellate authority would be an officer senior in rank to the CPIO. Thus the appellate authority as per provisions of the Act, would be an officer in a commanding position vis-a-vis the CPIO. Nevertheless, Appellate authority and the Appellate authority feels that intervention of higher authority is required to get his order implemented, he should bring the matter to the notice of the officer in the public authority competent to take against the CPIO. Such competent officer shall take necessary action so as to ensure implementation of the provisions of the RTI Act. (DoP&T memo No 10/23/2007-IR dated 9 July, 2007 ).