Calcutta Telegraph; Suman K. Shrivastava; Tuesday , December 21 , 2010,
Ranchi, Dec. 20: An information commissioner is misusing his authority, arbitrarily imposing fines on public authorities and awarding inflated compensation to appellants, a confidential probe conducted by his boss in the state information commission (CIC) has found.
Acting chief information commissioner Ram Bilash Gupta submitted his findings to the state personnel department on December 4 after examining seven judgments of information commissioner S.D. Mahto against whom the department had been receiving a series of complaints.
The probe, that was initiated around July after Pakur district president of Bahujan Samaj Party R.K. Singh filed a complaint to the personnel department annexing copies of the seven judgments, has found Mahto’s rulings to be “illegal” and passed without jurisdiction of law.
Citing his order in a case concerning Pawan Kumar Mahto and public information officer (PIO)-cum-executive engineer, irrigation, Godda, Gupta pointed out that Mahto imposed a penalty of Rs 25,000 on the engineer and also awarded a compensation of Rs 80,000 even though the appellant never asked for it.
“The appellant had sought information from 1970-71 to 2004-05 and through other points sought information in such a way that the same cannot be furnished as they do not come under the Right to Information Act,” Gupta pointed out.
In another case, when one Anil Chourasia filed an application before SDO Sahebganj, seeking information regarding BLN Bohra Inter College, Rajmahal, the SDO responded and requested principal Harendra Kumar Modi to provide the information.
But, since the principal did not furnish the information, Chourasia moved the commission. A fine of Rs 10,000 was imposed on Modi and a compensation of Rs 30,000 was awarded to him.
Later, Chourasia filed another set of applications for the same information which principal Modi furnished. But, even then the commissioner found the principal guilty of withholding information and slapped another fine of Rs 10,000 on him, and again awarded compensation of Rs 30,000 to the appellant.
In yet another case, one Arjun Mandal Anuragi sought information from Pakur assistant mining officer on August 8, 2008. The information reached the commission only on October 20, 2009, more than year late.
But despite the delay, a penalty of Rs 10,000 was imposed and a compensation of Rs 90,000 was awarded to the appellant, something the chief information commissioner found to be out of order.
“The penalty of Rs 10,000 and compensation of Rs 90,000 clearly show that Mahto was hand in glove with Anuragi and helped the mining officer by imposing a penalty of Rs 10,000 instead of Rs 25,000 for the delay of one year… at the same time he had caused wrongful gain to Anuragi by allowing compensation causing loss to the state exchequer,” Gupta said.
Under the act, if the commission believes that a PIO had failed to furnish information within 30 days of an application, a penalty of Rs 250 per day is to be calculated to a maximum of Rs 25,000.
“The commissioner does not have the discretion to impose penalties of whatever amount he may like,” Gupta, a former district judge, said. He also pointed out that it was settled in law that compensation was to be awarded for damages caused to the appellant and it was to be calculated in terms of money.
“The appellant has to seek compensation mentioning specific amount whatsoever as per calculation. So, Mahto’s orders imposing penalty and awarding compensation are arbitrary,” the acting CIC said.
Personnel department deputy secretary Vinod Kumar, who signed the letter asking the acting CIC to initiate a probe, said he did not know whether the probe report had been submitted or not.
Mahto, when contacted, said he wasn’t aware of any probe being initiated against him.
The state information commission has six members in all, five information commissioners and one chief information commissioner. As per the RTI Act, an information commissioner can be removed by the governor on grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity. But only after a nod from the Supreme Court.
.JPG)
.JPG)
