Gujrat University putting RTI norms on stake

According to RTI Act, if a student wants his corrected answer sheet, it is the duty of the particular university to provide him the answer sheet. This makes the whole procedure very transparent, but Gujarat University has molded the entire Act. Gujarat University is going to provide a xerox copy of the answer sheet after blacking out marks assigned to each answer.

Recently, Kushal Shah, a third year B Com student had filed an application for the copy of his answer sheet of business and accounting papers in August this year. The application was filed under section 7 (1) of the RTI Act, which is a clause pertaining to life and death. According to the section, the asked information should be provided to the applicant within 48 hours. But he was shocked to received a blacked out answer sheet. Shah straight away decided to take a legal action and he lodged a complaint with the state information commissioner D Rajagopalan.

Rajagopalan says "The university is required to provide certified photocopies of the answer sheets as they are in the custody of the university." Rajagopalan had upheld Kushal's demand under the section 7 (1) as it pertained to his life.

A member of Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat says "The university adopted a means that would discourage children from filing RTIs for their answer sheets. A black-out on the answer sheets defeats the purpose of the seeking a certified copy of the it."