WHY Orissa RTI Rules ARE ultra vires the parent law?
The Orissa RTI Rules-2005 is patently ultra vires the parent law too. Firstly, the Section 7(5) of the Act exempts the BPL families from 3 out of 4 kinds of fees chargeable under the Act. As such a BPL applicant is required to pay only one fee i.e. the cost of suo motu information under Section 4(4) of the Act. But Rule 4(1) under Orissa RTI Rules exempts only application fee under Section 6(1) and thereby compels a BPL person to pay other two kinds of fees, such as fee for cost of information under Section 7(1) and fee for electronic medium, which should have otherwise been exempted. Secondly, the Section 6(2) says, an applicant . . . shall not be required to give any reason for requesting the information or any other personal details except those that may be necessary for contacting him. But the Form-A (a lengthy application form bearing 11 columns) compels an applicant to disclose at Column-2 the name of father/spouse, at Column-3 the permanent address and at Column-4 the Particular
