RTI Second Appeal
If the response to the first appeal is not received within 90 days of submission or the applicant is not satisfied with the response, then a second appeal can be filed. The second appeal should be filed within 90 days of receiving the first appeal response or within 90 days of deadline for the first response.
The second appeal is to be filed with the Information commission. For central government departments, Central Information Commission (CIC) has been formed and for state government departments, State Information Commissions (SIC) have been formed for each state.
The second appeal has been described in section 19(3) of the RTI act:
(3) A second appeal against the decision under sub-section (1) shall lie within ninety days from the date on which the decision should have been made or was actually received, with the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission:
Provided that the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission, as the case may be, may admit the appeal after the expiry of the period of ninety days if it is satisfied that the appellant was prevented by sufficient cause from filing the appeal in time.
The second appeal is the final appeal possible and no further appeals can be made under RTI.
Central Information Commission
The official website of Central Information Commission is www.cic.gov.in. The site contains the names of the officers and the address for the cetral Information commission (http://cic.gov.in/ContactUs.htm).
Central Information Commission (Appeal Procedure) Rules, 2005 specifies how the appeal needs to be made and how does the process of second appeal proceeds.
Click here to download Central Information Commission (Appeal Procedure) Rules, 2005
As per the rules the appeal application should contain the following:
Contents of appeal.- An appeal to the Commission shall contain the following information, namely :-
(i) name and address of the appellant;
(ii) name and address of the Central Public Information Officer against the decision of whom the appeal is preferred;
(iii) particulars of the order including number, if any, against which the appeal is preferred;
(iv) brief facts leading to the appeal
(v) if the appeal is preferred against deemed refusal, the particulars of the application, including number and date and name and address of the Central Public Information Officer to whom the application was made; -2-
(vi) prayer or relief sought;
(vii) grounds for the prayer or relief;
(viii) verification by the appellant; and
(ix) any other information which the Commission may deem necessary for deciding the appeal.
Also, the following documents should be attached (if applicable) with the application:
4. Documents to accompany appeal.- Every appeal made to the Commission shall be accompanied by the following documents, namely :-
(i) self-attested copies of the Orders or documents against which the appeal is being preferred;
(ii) copies of documents relied upon by the appellant and referred to in the appeal; and
(iii) an index of the documents referred to in the appeal
State Information Commission
List of the State Information commissions can be found from the following link.
http://cic.gov.in/state_chief__information_commissioners.htm
The link also contains web-site for individual state information commissions which contain the form for submitting the second appeal.