Powers and Fuctions of Information Commission

The Information Commission (IC) enforces and oversees the Right to Information Act, Rules and Regulations made under the Act. 

The  Information Commission's main functions are educating and influencing. It promote good practice and give information and advice for resolving problems and enforcing. IC resolve eligible complaints from people who think their rights have been breached. It use legal sanctions against those who ignore or refuse to accept their obligations. 

As part of the IC's work, Commission comments on significant internal and external  consultations that relate to RTI. It also invite comments about significant documents we produce about our work. Commission can helps you to access information from any public body or other authorities as defined in the Act and to find out information on your requirement/demand.

The Functions of the Information Commission shall be as follows namely-

1. to issue directives for the preservation, management, publication, publicity of and access to information by authority;

2. to prescribe the procedure for applying for information from the authority and, as the case may be, to fix appropriate price of information;

3. to formulate guidelines and directives as to the preservation and implementation of the right to information of the citizens;

4. to consider the provisions recognized under the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh or any other law for the time being in force in order to preserve the right to information and recommend to the Government for their effective implementation

by indicating the impediments;

5. to identify the impediments against the preservation and implementation of right to information of the citizens and recommend to the Government for appropriate solution;

6. to conduct research on the agreements relating to the right toinformation and other international instruments and to recommend to the Government for their implementation;

7. to examine the similarities of the prevailing law relating to the maintenance and implementation of the right to information of the citizens and to make necessary recommendation to the or, as the case may be, to the appropriate authority in order to ensure their harmonization with the international instruments;

8. to advise the Government to ratify or sign any international instrument on right to information;

9. to conduct research on preservation and implementation of the right to information and to assist the educational and professional institution for conducting such research;

10. to publicize the issues relating to the preservation and implementation of the right to information among different classes of citizens of the society and to increase their awareness about the right to information by publishing, disseminating or any other means;

11. to advise and provide assistance to the Government in order to make necessary laws and administrative directives for preservation and implementation of right to information;

12. to advise and provide assistance to the organizations or institutions working for the preservation and implementation of the right to information and to citizens in general;

13. to increase public awareness on right to information by conducting research, seminars, symposiums, workshops and similar other measures and disseminate the result obtained from the research;

14. to give the authority technical and other assistance with a view to ensuring right to information;

15. to establish a web portal for Bangladesh to ensure right to information;

16. to oversee the actions taken under any other law relating to the preservation and implementation of the right to information.