The right to ask

The Right to Information Act, 2064 gives every citizen of Nepal a right that sounds almost too broad to be real: you may ask a public body for the information it holds, and it is obliged to give it to you. You do not need standing, a lawyer, or a reason.

The Act also sets a clock. A public body must provide the requested information within fifteen days of the application. Where the request concerns the life or liberty of a person, the limit is twenty-four hours. A deadline is what separates a right from a courtesy.

The requests that work ask for documents, not opinions. “Why was the contract given to that firm?” invites a paragraph of nothing. “A copy of the contract, the evaluation sheet, and the list of bidders” asks for objects that either exist or do not. Name the document, name the period, and keep the request to one subject.

Every public body is required to designate an information officer. Submit the application there, in writing, and keep a registered copy — the same discipline that makes a ward complaint stick. Ask for the answer in writing as well.

Refusals happen, and the Act anticipates them. If information is denied or simply ignored, the matter can be taken further: first within the body itself, and then to the National Information Commission, which exists for precisely this purpose. A refusal is not the end of the process. It is the second stage of it.

Information is not a favour granted by an office. It is the raw material of every other kind of accountability — you cannot question a budget you have not read, or challenge a decision whose file you have never seen. In a country where a great deal still moves on personal connection, a written request with a date on it is a quietly radical act.

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