HASSAN: A farmer from Basavanahalli village in Arkalgud taluk was forced to sell his cow to obtain documents under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. He had filed applications seeking documents related to various works undertaken by the Kalahanalli Gram Panchayat, suspecting corruption in the implementation of these projects.

Despite repeated attempts, the panchayat authorities did not provide the farmer, B S Ravi, with the documents, and instead, asked him to pay Rs 32,740 as fees for 16,370 pages of documents. The authorities asked Ravi to pay Rs 2 per page for the documents, which he couldn’t afford.

Unable to bear the financial burden, Ravi sold his cow for Rs 25,000 and borrowed the remaining amount from friends to pay the fees. After obtaining the documents, Ravi transported them

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