National Herald: Haryana: Tuesday, June 26, 2018.
At least 36
of the 69 IAS officers in Haryana had agreed to share their property details as
of 2010, while 33 officials had refused to part with the details.
The
two-member divisional bench comprising Haryana State Information Commissioners
(SICs) Yogendra Pal Gupta and Hemant Atri will hear the nine-year-old important
case of sharing of details of properties of IAS and IPS officers in the state.
For this, the
Commission has summoned the Undersecretary of Personnel Department,
Superintendent at DGP’s Office, SP (Law and Order) of Police Headquarters and
the appellant PP Kapoor, to Chandigarh on June 26. At least thirty-six of the
69 IAS officers had agreed to share their property details as of 2010, while 33
officials had refused to part with the details.
Activist PP
Kapoor said that he had sent an RTI application to the Chief Secretary asking
for the details of the property of all IAS, IPS, HPS and HCS officers in the
state on December 16, 2009. The police headquarters had then expressly refused
to provide the information.
A total of 36
IAS officers, including Ashok Khemka, Samir Mathur, Umashankar, PK Das, TK
Sharma, Balbir Mallik, Dr J Ganeshan and Dr Amit Aggrawal, had given their
consent to the government to make the details of their property public.
IAS officer
Ashok Khemka, in a letter to the Cabinet Secretary and the Central Vigilance
Commissioner, had even said that public servants should not be afraid of making
the details of their properties public. “Such steps encourage transparency and
credibility in public institutions,” Khemka had said.
“The details
of the properties, under Section 4 of the RTI Act, must be made public on the
official website. The government should make a law to seize the property which
has not been claimed by public servants. With this small amendment in law, the
cancer of corruption can be treated to a great extent,” said Kapoor.
On the other
hand, 33 IAS officers, including RK Khullar, Suprabha Dahiya, Vijay Dahiya,
Ashok Lavasa, Doctor Chandrasekhar, Sunil Gulati and VS Kundu, in a letter to
the then government had refused to disclose their property details.
According to
RTI activist PP Kapoor, the previous hearing in the commission had taken place
in February 2012 but it was adjourned for an indefinite period. The court had
then cited a similar case involving details of the property of the district
food supplies controller DP Jangra, pending before the Punjab and Haryana High
Court.
While the
High Court had regarded the state information commission’s decision correct and
ordered that the details of DP Jangda’s properties be made public, Kapoor has
demanded that the details of the properties of all IAS, IPS HCS and HPS
officers should immediately be made public and should be uploaded on the
concerned departments’ websites.
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