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The government of Goa has issued a circular to this effect on Monday. The governments action comes in the wake of complaints that some PIOs were not furnishing information under RTI within a time-frame or were providing unsatisfactory information. The Goa government has therefore warned officers that they would have to engage their own lawyers in cases where they fail to adhere to the RTI Act scrupulously.
According to the circular, unless the officers concerned have acted 
within the framework of the act while disposing of the applications with due diligence,any request for a government panel advocate to argue their case would not be entertained
Such a situation would leave the PIOs to defend the appeal personally or engage an advocate at their own expense. The government of Goa would consider appointment of an advocate from the advocate panel only in genuine cases and after the request is accompanied by a self-contained note justifying the allotment of a government pleader, the circular said.
It has been observed that applications for information were being rejected citing section 8(exemption of information from disclosure) or under section 9 ( furnishing of such information would involve infringement of copyright subsisting in a person other than the state) without recording reasons for such rejection.
It is obligatory under the RTI act to elaborate the reasons along with the applicability of the particular subsection under which such information is exempted and merely quoting the section itself would not be enough, the circular stated.
Due to the above tactics on the part of the authorities designated under the RTI act and aggrieved by their orders, the applicants were forced to appeal before the chief information commissioner against the authorities which led the defaulting officers to eek legal assistance from government advocates to defend themselves.