Right to Information Act - Public Authority is not required to do research on behalf of the Citizen - DOPT
It seems that some people under the Right to Information Act request the Public Information Officers ( PIO ) to cull out Information from some document(s) and give such extracted information to them. In some cases, the applicants expect the PIO to give information in some particular Proforma devised by them on the plea that sub-section (9) of Section 7 provides that information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought.
The Department of Personnel & Training has clarified that the sub-section simply means that if the information is sought in the form of photocopy, it shall be provided in the form of photocopy and if it is sought in the form of a floppy, it shall be provided in that form subject to the conditions given in the Act etc. It does not mean that the PIO shall re-shape the information.
DOPT further clarifies that a citizen, under the Act, has a right to get ‘material' from a public authority which is held by or under the control of that public authority. The right includes inspection of work, documents, records; taking notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records; taking certified samples of material; taking information in the form of diskettes, floppies, tapes video cassettes or in any other electronic mode or through printouts where such information is stored in a computer or in any other device.
The Act, however, does not require the Public Information Officer to deduce some conclusion from the ‘material' and supply the ‘conclusion' so deduced to the applicant. The PIO is required to supply the ‘material' in the form as held by the public authority and is not required to do research on behalf of the citizen to deduce anything from the material and then supply it to him.