Indian Government Now Says NRIs Eligible to File RTIs

Changing its earlier stand over the eligibility of Non-Resident Indians (NRI) to file RTI applications, the Government of India has now said that NRIs can file RTIs to obtain the information from various government departments.

On Aug.8 this year Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh had said in a reply to an unstarred question in Lok Sabha that “NRIs are not eligible to file RTI applications.”

He had said in written reply, “Only citizens of India have the right to seek information under the provisions of Right to Information Act, 2005. Non-Resident Indians are not eligible to file RTI applications.”

The government’s stand on this issue had sparked controversy and confusion, which now has been removed by the rectification of the error in the reply.

According to a PTI report, this error was underlined by an RTI activist Commodore (Retired) Lokesh Batra, who wrote to the ministry saying that transparency related act allows every Indian to seek information.

Now an edited reply to this question has been uploaded with a label of “corrected reply” on the website of Lok Sabha. The amended reply now says, “All citizens of India have the right to seek information under the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005. Non-Resident Indian citizens are eligible to file RTI applications.”

The question about NRIs’ eligibility to seek information via RTI was asked by BJP MP from Jammu, Jugal Kishore Sharma in the lower house.

Explaining the whole episode behind this correction of stand by the government, Money life India reported that after the erroneous reply by the minister in Parliament, Batra had asked the ministry to clarify the definition of NRI. When he didn’t get any information, he filed a complaint before Chief Information Commissioner.

He had also asked, in his RTI application, for “certified scanned copies of a complete set of documents and notings relevant to Lok Sabha’s unstarred question No. 3535, starting from the time the question was first received in Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) up to the time a response was finalized and forwarded to the Parliament (Lok Sabha),” according to the report.

He was told by Varsha Sinha, director in the US-RTI division in the DoPT that “The corrected reply to the Lok Sabha Question No.3535 has been uploaded on the official site of the Lok Sabha on 26 October 2018,” says the portal.

The portal quotes him as saying, “It is not every day the government accepts mistake of this kind leading to correction of response given by a minister of state that too under the PMO.”

Jitendra Singh also holds additional responsibility as the Minister of State for Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).