Prescribed form for seeking information not mandatory : Punjab SIC

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2008/20080526/punjab1.htm#4

Prescribed form not must for RTI applications
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, May 25

The State Information Commission (SIC), Punjab, has held that public authorities cannot reject RTI applications on the ground that the information request was not in the form prescribed by the State Government.
The Punjab Government had prescribed ‘Form A’ under the Punjab RTI Rules, 2007, in which RTI applicants were supposed to answer nine queries first before the RTI application could be entertained.
The form was challenged by a local lawyer Capt Navdeep Singh before the full bench of the Commission on the ground that it contravened the provisions of the RTI Act which did not prescribe any such form.
The ambiguity was compounded by the fact that one Bench of the Commission comprising P K Verma had held the application form to be mandatory while another bench of Rupan Deol Bajaj had held that there was no requirement of seeking information in the said format since the Act did not prescribe it.
While holding that a complaint filed under Section 18 of RTI Act was not maintainable, the full Bench, however, made it clear that the rules were only directory in nature and not mandatory and if a sufficiently clear application was made to any public authority then the same could not be rejected for the reason of not being in ‘Form A’.
The Bench also stated that the rules were meant to facilitate information and had to be construed liberally. The commission also held that in case any PIO or appellate authority rejected an application on grounds of it not being in conformity of the state rules, the Commission could direct the supply of the information to the applicant.