Times of India: Panaji: Saturday,
December 10, 2016.
The Goa State
Information Commission (GSIC) has directed the public information officer (PIO)
and secretary of the village panchayat of Sancoale, Arjun Velip, to pay a
penalty of 25,000 for not responding to Narayan D Naik’s request for
information which he had sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The
commission has ordered the director of panchayats to deduct the penalty amount
from Velip’s monthly salary in five installments, of 5,000 each, beginning with
the salary of the month of January 2016. The amount will have to be credited to
the government account with a written intimation to the commission.
In 2015 Naik
had filed nine RTI applications before the village panchayat of Sancoale, but
received no response. Even after orders from the Mormugao taluka block
development officer (BDO) directing the PIO to furnish information to the
complainant, and despite reminders being sent, the PIO did not respond.
The
commission observed that the PIO did not bother to comply with the order of the
first appellate authority or attend hearings before the authority.
The PIO
stated that the information sought was bulky in nature and that the records had
not been catalogued as required. He also stated that the audit of the panchayat
has not been conducted for the past three years and hence, records are
incomplete.
The
commission observed that the PIO has contravened provisions of Section 7(1) and
18 (1) (c) of denying a request for information within the time limit specified
under the Act and said that he was liable for penalty under the Act.
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