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Tahsildar fined Rs 25,000 for giving wrong answers of RTI query
Jayaraj Sivan, TNN 12 November 2009, 06:07am IST
CHENNAI: The state information commission has imposed a fine of Rs
25,000 on a tahsildar in Vandavasi, Tiruvannamalai district, for
providing
incorrect information about the disbursement of old-age pension in his taluk.
As T Retna Pandian, an activist, had not got the information he sought
under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, he filed an appeal before
the state commission. State chief information commissioner S
Ramakrishnan and information commissioner G Ramakrishnan, in their
order, said, "The collector of Tiruvannamalai will levy the maximum
penalty of Rs 25,000, which has become leviable on the Public
Information Officer (special tahsildar), remit it in the government
account and report the fact to the commission within four weeks of
this order." The commission also ordered the collector to depute a
senior officer to provide correct information to Pandian, general
secretary of 5th Pillar India, a Chennai-based NGO.
Pandian had filed an RTI application in June 2008, seeking details
about the beneficiaries of the old-age pension scheme following
complaints of political interference in disbursement. "More than 20
people from Vandavasi said their old-age pensions had been stopped as
they had not supported a particular candidate in the last local body
election. I filed an application seeking details of disbursement of
Central and state government sponsored old-age pension schemes. The
tahsildar, in his reply on June 27, 2008, said 6,887 people had
applied and, except in 1,000 cases where the postal department could
not deliver the pension, the others were given pension regularly,"
Pandian said. The PIO asked Pandian to pay a fee of Rs 300 for a copy
of the file. Pandian paid the money and filed an appeal seeking
replies to more queries, but did not receive a reply.
Pandian approached the state commission on September 20, 2008. The
commission, which held its first inquiry on February 25, 2009, ordered
tahsildar M Murugesan to provide the replies. Murugesan said 7,827
people were getting pension and 1,401 applications were rejected.
Since the figures contradicted those given by the PIO earlier, the
petitioner once again moved the commission.
Tiruvannamalai district collector M Rajendran said, "We have decided
to impose a fine on two special tahsildars and two section assistants,
who provided wrong information to the commission. If there are
complaints about discrepancies in disbursement of pension, we will
investigate."
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