Denying info costs 2 officers Rs 25K each

Ramkrishan Upadhyay
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, October 21

Making a scathing attack on the functioning of the UT Estate Office, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has imposed a penalty of Rs 25,000 each on two officers of its officers for not providing information to an applicant under the Right to Information Act.

Holding them responsible for “harassment of the applicant”, the CIC has directed the UT Administration to deduct the amount from the salary of Kulbhusan Choudhary, Assistant Controller (F&A) and CPIO, Estate Office, and Purshottam Lal, Superintendent and former CPIO, Estate Office, and deposit the amount in the Treasury.

A Mohali resident, advocate Pawan Kumar Sharma, had sought information regarding the dispatch of a letter of a house situated in Sector 27, Chandigarh.

The application was filed on May 2, 2017, but instead of supplying the information, the officers concerned of the Estate Office made the applicant suffer for more than a year by sending the application from one department to the other.

The commission stated that neither the then CPIO nor the present one had any reasonable reason to tender for the inaction on the RTI application and for misleading the complainant by transferring the RTI application to another public authority after the receipt of a “hearing notice” on June 18 this year.

On the one hand, the present CPIO claims that all files have been provided to the complainant, while on the other, the RTI application was transferred to another public authority upon receipt of a “hearing notice” on the pretext that the matter pertained to it.

The order stated that the officers had misled the complainant as well as the commission with prima facie mala fide intention. The commission deems this to be a fit case for imposing the maximum penalty of Rs 25,000 each under Section 20 (1) of the RTI Act on Kulbhusan Choudhary and Purshottam Lal for gross violation of provisions of the Act.

The order stated that the amount would be deducted from their salary in five equal instalments (Rs 5,000 per month), starting December.

The First Appellate Authority is directed to recover Rs 25,000 each from the salary of both officers and remit it through demand draft(s) or banker’s cheque in the name of Pay and Accounts Officer, CAT, payable in New Delhi, and send it to Shanti Priye Beck, Joint Secretary (Administration), CIC, New Delhi.