How to make a right to information request in Nepal

The right attaches to information held by a public body. That phrase does more work than it appears to. It means a record that already exists in the body's possession — a file, a decision, a contract, a report, a register, a set of minutes, a piece of correspondence. It does not mean an answer to a question, an explanation of why something was done, or an analysis the body would have to produce for you.

This is the most common reason a genuine request fails. 'Why was this contract awarded to that company?' invites a refusal, because no document called 'why' exists. 'A copy of the evaluation report and the minutes of the selection committee meeting for tender X, dated between these two dates' asks for records, and records are what the law compels.

'Public body' is defined broadly and reaches well beyond ministries. Departments, commissions, local governments, and bodies constituted under law or substantially funded from public money all fall within it. If an institution spends public money or exercises public authority, start from the assumption that it is covered and let it argue otherwise.

The law also imposes duties that do not depend on anyone asking. Public bodies must designate an information officer, must classify and manage their records, and must proactively publish specified categories of information on a regular cycle. Nepali government sites now routinely carry a swatah prakashan section, and departments from health to immigration maintain a dedicated right-to-information page.

There are exemptions, and they are real. Information whose disclosure would seriously jeopardise national sovereignty, security or international relations, would directly threaten an individual's life or physical safety, would undermine an ongoing criminal investigation, or would unjustifiably invade personal privacy can be withheld. Commercially confidential material has protection in defined circumstances.

What matters practically is that an exemption must be claimed and justified against the record requested, not asserted as a general shield. A refusal that simply says 'confidential' without identifying the ground is exactly what the appeal process exists to test, and the National Information Commission publishes its orders on appeals so you can see how similar claims have been dealt with.

Start by working out which body physically holds the record. This is a question about administration, not about who is responsible in a political sense. A ministry sets policy; a department administers it; a district or local office executes it and generates the paperwork. The file you want is usually two levels below where instinct sends you.

Look at the structure. Nepali government sites publish organisation charts, division and section listings, and lists of offices under the department. Read those before writing. A request that names the correct division saves a fortnight of forwarding, and forwarding is where requests die.

Then find the information officer. Most public bodies publish the designation, and many publish a name and contact details on their right-to-information or about pages. Where the name is not published, the citizen charter page and the contact page will usually get you to someone who can tell you.

Check the proactive disclosure section first. If the body has already published what you want, you have your answer today rather than in a month. Departments publish annual reports, progress reports, budgets, policies, procurement notices, statistics and circulars as a matter of routine, and a surprising proportion of requests are for material that was already online.

If you are unsure between two bodies, it is legitimate to ask both. It is not a good idea to send an identical request to eight bodies on the theory that one will answer, because a scattergun request signals that you do not know what you want, and vague requests attract vague responses.

Where the information concerns a local matter — a road contract, a ward budget, a school — the local government is usually the holder, and the federal ministry is usually not. Nepal's federal restructuring moved a great deal of record-keeping down to provinces and local units, and the request should follow the record rather than the historic hierarchy.

Use the standard format. The National Information Commission publishes formats for the request, the complaint and the appeal, and using them removes an entire class of procedural objection. A request on the Commission's own template is difficult to reject for being in the wrong form.

Describe the record, not the subject. 'All correspondence between office A and office B relating to project P, between these two dates' is a description. 'Information about project P' is a topic, and a topic can be answered with a paragraph of nothing.

Bound it in time and scope. An unbounded request invites a refusal on the grounds that compliance would divert an unreasonable amount of the body's resources. A request bounded by dates, by a named project, or by a specific committee is far harder to characterise that way — and if you genuinely need a wide sweep, ask for the index or register first and then request the specific items from it.

State the form you want it in. A photocopy, an inspection of the file, or an electronic copy are different things with different costs, and asking for the cheapest form you can actually use is both practical and tactically sensible.

Give your citizenship details as required and a contact address that will work for a month. Requests fail because a response was sent to an address that no longer receives post, and the clock does not restart because you did not see the answer.

Do not explain why you want it. The law does not require a reason, and volunteering one gives a reluctant officer a target — a request that says 'for a news story' or 'for a court case' invites a discussion about your motive rather than about the record. If asked, the honest answer is that the law does not condition the right on a purpose.

Keep a dated copy of everything you send and get a receipt for the submission. The appeal process runs on dates, and a request you cannot prove you made on a particular day is an appeal you cannot bring.

Silence is a decision. If the information officer does not respond within the statutory period, the law treats that as a refusal you can appeal, and you should. Waiting politely for another month erodes the time you have and signals that the deadline is negotiable.

The first rung is internal. An unsatisfied requester appeals to the head of the public body — the chief of the office or department that holds the record. This is a genuine opportunity rather than a formality: heads of office frequently release material their information officer withheld out of caution, because the head can weigh the institutional cost of an adverse Commission order.

The second rung is the National Information Commission. It hears appeals against the internal decision and complaints about failures under the Act, and it has the power to order a public body to provide the information. Its published orders on appeals are the closest thing Nepal has to a case law of information rights, and reading a few before you file will tell you how the Commission has treated arguments like the one being used against you.

The Commission publishes standard formats for complaints and appeals alongside the request format, and maintains its own citizen charter setting out how it handles matters. Its annual reports set out the volume and pattern of cases, which is useful context if you are trying to judge how long a matter may take.

Timeliness is everything at this stage. Each rung has its own deadline running from the decision or the expiry of the period below it. Miss it and the substance of your case becomes irrelevant, which is why the dated receipt from the original submission matters so much.

Be realistic about what an order achieves. The Commission can direct release, and that direction carries real weight, but enforcement against a determined body can still take time. The strongest position is a narrow, precisely described request for a record the body cannot plausibly claim is exempt — the kind of request that is easier to answer than to fight.

Proactive disclosure is the underused half of the law. Public bodies must publish specified categories of information on a regular cycle, and where they do it properly there is no need to ask at all. The Ministry of Health and Population, the Department of Immigration and many others maintain dedicated right-to-information pages, and departments across government publish self-publication sections, annual reports, statistics, procurement notices and circulars.

If a body's proactive disclosure is stale or absent, that is itself a matter you can raise. A failure to publish what the law requires is a failure under the Act, not merely a website problem, and the Commission's complaint route exists for it.

Partial answers are common and are often more useful than they look. A body that releases a redacted document has conceded the document exists and is broadly disclosable, which changes the argument entirely. Ask what was withheld and on what ground, and press for the specific exemption relied on for each redaction rather than a blanket assertion.

Where a body says the information does not exist, ask it to confirm that in writing, identifying what it searched. That statement has value: it either closes the question or, if the record later surfaces, establishes that the body's search was inadequate.

Fees can be charged for copying and for the cost of supply, and the amounts are set administratively rather than being fixed in the law forever. Ask for the fee to be quantified before the work is done, and consider whether inspection of the file — which avoids copying costs — would meet your need.

Finally, remember what the right is for. It is not a debating instrument and it is not a way of making a point to an official. It is a means of getting hold of documents. Requesters who keep that in view, ask for records, keep their dates, and escalate on schedule get material out of Nepali public bodies routinely. Requesters who write letters of complaint dressed up as requests do not.