Revenue officer penalised for denying info under RTI

Chandigarh Tribune‎‎: Patiala: Wednesday, May 04, 2016.

Denial of information under the RTI Act landed the public information officer (PIO), posted at Sangrur, in trouble as the State Information Commission (SIC) has not only imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on the erring officials, but also pointed out the sorry state of affairs in the department.

Raj Singh Toderwal, a resident of Babalpur village in the district, had applied for information under the RTI Act about the number of cases of atrocities against Dalits that had been reported in Sangrur district. The application was moved on April 3, 2015. However, as the information was not provided, he filed an appeal with the first appellant authority.

However, as no information was forthcoming, Toderwal moved the State Information Commission (SIC), which summoned the district revenue officer (PIO), along with the SDM.

While pronouncing the order, the State Information Commission took on record that no information had been provided to the applicant. The State Information Commission also came down heavily on the government officials. It stated, “it is not one of those cases where any single individual/PIO is responsible for the sorry state of affairs prevailing in the department in the matter of maintenance of records. The flaws are systematic in nature”.

It further stated, “Had the department been properly managed and administered, the maintenance of records would have been given due priority and attention. The department, therefore, has been clearly remiss in discharge of its functions. This has resulted in avoidable inconvenience to the applicant and thus he was entitled to compensation under Section 19(8)(b) of the Right to Information Act.”

Raj Singh Toderwal said he was sensitive to the large-scale violations of human rights, especially in the case of Dalits, and had sought the information to know what the government was doing to redress such issues.

He said it was quite unbecoming of the district administration of Sangrur to have held back the information on the grounds that the record related to the info sought was not available.