A public interest litigation petition has been filed before the Supreme Court of India seeking a direction to the States and Union Territories to provide an online mode for carrying out the various processes under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The PIL petition which was filed on November 16, 2015 will be heard on January 5, 2016 by a bench consisting of Chief Justice of India TS Thakur and Justices AK Sikri and R Banumathi.

The petition filed by advocate Rajeev Agrawal has requested the Court for a centralised online system where the RTI requests, payment of fees and the first appeals under the RTI Act, can be made online. As of now the online mode for these three steps is available only for the Ministries and Departments and few Public Authorities of the Central Government through www.rtionline.gov.in.

Inter alia, the petitioner has made the following prayer:

Issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ(s), order(s) or directions to the all the State Governments and all the Union Territories to create their respective centralized RTI websites for submission of RTI requests and 1st appeal online and payment of RTI fees thereupon, as a universal access point for submitting RTI requests through internet in respect of every Public Authority functioning under that Government.

Mohit Singh

Mohit Singh is an advocate at the Supreme Court of India.

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