No information on RTI Applications to which Info was denied: Centre
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New Delhi: The Centre told Parliament that it has no information on returning Information (RTI) applications with no answer or denying information in the last five years, The Wire reported.
The response came after Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament Ritabrata Banerjee sought in the Rajya Sabha details regarding the number of applications filed under the RTI Act, 2005, during the last five years.
Other details sought include ‘the number of applications with no answers or denied information and the year-wise details of applications answered’.
Regarding the number of applications returned with no answer or denying information, Jitendra Singh— the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and the Prime Minister’s Office— told the parliament that ‘the Central Information Commission (CIC) has informed that no such data is compiled by them’.
Singh, however, said that a total of 17,50,863 RTI applications were filed, 67,615 were rejected and 14,30,031 were answered.
In 2022-23, as many as 16,38,784 RTI applications were filed while 52,662 were rejected and 13,15,222 were answered.
As many as 13,33,802 and 13,74,315 RTI applications were filed in 2020-2021 and 2019-2020, respectively, he replied adding that 10,86,657 were answered in 2019-20 but data on answering quires for 2019-20 was not available.
The government’s response to RTI came into focus after the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, was notified last month for ‘staggered’ implementation.
Through Section 44(3), this Act amends Section 8(1)(j) of RTI Act to ‘exempt all personal information from disclosure’.