The Apex Court entertained the petition through NGO Common Cause which attracted the judicial attention towards the imposition of excessive fee from general public seeking information under RTI. A Bench comprising of  Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit passed the order on several petitions challenging RTI rules of various High Courts and other authorities which charged hefty fees for RTI application and photocopying.

Supreme Court fixed the fees for filing the application under the Right to Information Act. The maximum fees would be Rs. 50 and photocopying charges will not be more than Rs. 5 per page of documents sought under the Act. It was also held that public authorities shall not compel the RTI applicant to provide reason or intention for seeking information.

This order shall be binding on all institutions including High Courts, Legislative Assemblies and other government and autonomous bodies which are within the ambit of Right to Information Act, 2005.

Prashant Bhushan, the counsel on behalf of the petitioners contended that the Allahabad High Court charged Rs 500 per information under the RTI Act which was illegal and it was intended to discourage citizens from seeking information. He said as per the HC rule, an application for information should be for only one item, it should be accompanied by Rs 500 by way of application fee and that the citizen should pay Rs 15 for every page of information.

He contended that there was a major difference between the rules framed by Centre and the Allahabad High Court Rules. The cost of one page of information as per Central Rules is just Rs. 2 while Allahabad High Court charged R. 15 per page of the information sought. The fees for seeking the information under Central Rules is just Rs. 10 while Allahabad HC charged Rs. 500.

He also referred to an order passed by the Central Information Commission which had held that such stringent restrictive conditions, including such high level of fees, would surely deter citizens from freely seeking information from the HC which was not in conformity with the spirit of RTI Act.

The counsel for the petitioner also cited RTI application fees imposed by Chhatisgarh Vidhan Sabha. In 2011, the fee was Rs. 500 which was reduced to Rs. 300 in December 2016 which was too excessive when compared to the fees given under Central Rules.