urvashi
Government official to pay for refusing information under RTI
November 24th, 2009 - 4:17 pm ICT by IANS
Mayank Aggarwal
New Delhi, Nov 24 (IANS) Refusing information to an octogenarian under
the Right To Information Act has cost a Delhi government official
dear.
He will have Rs.4,500 deducted from his salary every month for the
next five months as penalty for violating the RTI act provisions. The
salary cut was imposed on the official by the Central Information
Commission (CIC).
The applicant, Radhey Shyam Aggarwal, 80, had approached the
Department of Trade and Taxes of the Delhi government in June asking
for the copy of an affidavit, which someone had allegedly falsely
given in his name to get a Value Added Tax number.
However, the then Public Information Officer (PIO) Arun Kumar Mishra
of the department refused to give him the affidavit copy, stating that
the information sought was "prohibited" under the Delhi Value Added
Tax (DVAT) Act.
Aggarwal then approached the First Appellate Authority (FAA) of the
trade and taxes department but was again refused the information.
"I have gone through the reply given by the PIO, and do not find any
infirmity in the same. It is true that the PIO is prohibited under
Section 98 of the DVAT Act to divulge the information to a third
party," the FAA ruled.
Upset with the order, the appellant then filed an appeal with the CIC.
Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi noted in his order: "…PIO and
FAA have both failed to discharge their duties under the RTI Act. The
PIO without any application of mind has refused to give the
information."
"The PIO refused to give him the information purportedly. The FAA, in
what appears to be collusion to deny and harass the citizen, suddenly
claimed that the department gets the information in a fiduciary
relationship," Gandhi observed.
The PIO finally gave Agarwal the information after 90 days.
The CIC in October issued a show cause notice to Arun Kumar Mishra,
for not supplying the complete required information within 30 days as
mandated under the RTI act.
It asked Mishra to submit his written submissions on "why penalty
should not be imposed on him".
In his written submission, Mishra claimed that he had not realised
that the applicant was asking for information about an affidavit
supposed to have been filed by him (the applicant himself).
The CIC ruled that this was a fit case for penalising the official for
refusing to give the information without any valid grounds.
"Since the delay in providing the information has been 90 days, the
commission is passing an order penalizing Arun Kumar Mishra Rs.22,500
(Rs.250 per day)," the order noted.
The commission has directed the Delhi's chief secretary to recover the
amount from Mishra's salary in five months starting from December by
deducting Rs.4,500 every month.
"It is impossible to believe that the PIO who is a senior officer and
can read and write English did not realize that he was withholding the
affidavit of Radhey Shyam Aggarwal from himself," the commission
observed.
Ajay Aggarwal, the son of Radhey Shyam Aggarwal, told IANS: "Three
years ago, one of our distant relatives Arun Kumar Gupta had applied
for a VAT number by filing a false affidavit. He had formed a company
named Aggarwal Traders for unknown malafide intentions. When we came
to know about it from our sources we complained to the department and
it cancelled the VAT number."
"We then filed a RTI with the department in order to get a copy of the
false affidavit," Ajay said.
- Indo-Asian News Service
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