Official told to pay Rs5K compensation to RTI.

The Times of India; Jeeva; chennai; Wednesday, Apr 27, 2011,

CHENNAI: The Coimbatore district consumer disputes redressal forum has ordered the public information officer of a taluk office in the district to pay Rs 5,000 as compensation to a right to information applicant for not responding to his queries under the RTI Act.

The forum held that non-furnishing of a reply to RTI queries after getting the application fee amounted to deficiency in service' as defined in the Consumer Protection Act.

The complainant R Natarajan of Sindhamanipudhur in Coimbatore filed an RTI application with Sulur taluk office last June seeking details to 29 queries which, among others, relate to disbursement of pattas and the general functioning of the office, including maintenance of vehicles.

But the taluk didn't reply to his queries though the public information officer, as per the RTI Act, had to furnish details within 30 days from the date of receipt of the application, he added.

In defence, the information officer argued that he had given a reply to Natarajan within a week and hence there was no deficiency in service. If the applicant was not convinced with the reply he got, he could only file an appeal with the Tamil Nadu Information Commission and could not approach the consumer forum, the information officer said.

The forum observed that the official did not produce any documentary evidence to prove his claim that he had sent a reply to the complainant. If the reply was given to the applicant in June 2010 itself, the information officer could have submitted the office copy of it and shown necessary entries in the dispatch register, the forum said. "It only showed that there is no truth in his claim," it added.

As the official argued that he had sent another reply last November, the forum made it clear that details furnished to the applicant after he moved the consumer forum could not relieve the information officer from the liability of deficiency in service.

Holding that RTI applicants could well approach consumer fora for service deficiency, the forum ordered the information officer to pay Rs 1,000 towards litigation expenses, along with the compensation, to the complainant.