Hindustan Times: Mumbai: Saturday,
July 23, 2016.
A Khar
college has been fined by the Maharashtra State Information Commission because
it refused to reply to queries filed under the Right To Information Act.
Hansraj
Jivandas College of Education has been asked to pay Rs2.25 lakh for not
replying to nine queries sent to the institute, even after repeated reminders.
“There have
been rumours about the institute misusing the monetary grants that they receive
and I have filed a total of 12 RTIs since June 2015. Nine of them have not yet
been replied to,” said Krishnan Kutty, an advocate.
He added that
the commission had sent the institute several reminders including show cause
notices since January 2016, but to no avail. These RTIs have sought information
on the institute’s usage of government grants and seminar grants as well as the
number of holidays allowed to professors as per UGC rules.
While the
commission has sent a notice to the institute informing them of a fine of
Rs25,000 on each of the RTI query they defaulted on, the college told HT that
they had been framed.
“The college
has received 90 RTIs over the past few years and we have replied to each and
every one of them well within the time frame,” said principal Anita Swami.
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