The Brave Pedestrian

  1) A good RTI application as boring as a laundry list. It is a bare list of items of information WITHOUT ANY reasoning. If the first draft of RTI application is interesting to read, something is wrong. Make corrections by deleting the interesting material, such as logical threads of reasoning and justification. You must focus on how to draft an RTI application that DOES NOT disclose the overall nature of the problem in your mind. It must not give a glimpse of what you intend to do with the requested information e.g. register police complaints, approach investigating agencies, file a PIL etc. Also, your RTI application must not indicate how badly you want the information, and therefore, please don’t mention anything such as “I am a senior citizen dependent on my pension cheques, and I have been pushed from pillar-to-post in search of this information.” When you write an RTI application, you must try to gain only information, and not sympathy, respect etc. ...

Quite often, people feel guilty and try to explain why they want a particular piece of information. Some people write a covering letter for their RTI application explaining their grievances and how getting the information will help them. Others explain that they are collecting information for their doctoral thesis or newspaper article. Still others try to impress the PIO by writing that they are relatives of a Member of Parliament, or the president of some association or trade union. All that is unnecessary. Section 6(2) clearly says: An applicant making request for information shall not be required to give any reason or any other personal details except those that necessary for contacting him. So, whether you are drafting your RTI application, speaking to a PIO or any Appellate Authority, remember: you need not disclose the purpose for which you want the information, or any additional details about yourself. Your name and contract details is all that anybod...