Proshun Chakraborty; Times of India: Wed Apr 06 2011,
NAGPUR: Employees of Regional Transport Office, Nagpur, already in the news for wrong reasons, beat up and injured a transporter and social activist who objected to delay in issuing information he has sought under Right to Information Act. RTO staffers Kishore Chimnikar, Ram Wandile and Pradeep Gattewar along with some touts allegedly injured the transporter and social activist Dilip Jaiswal.
Recently, two RTO staffers Pradip Lehgaonkar and Shriram Parse were arrested by Amravati police and charged with preparing fake registration papers for a gang involved in stealing vehicles. Jaiswal had approached the city RTO office with a query under RTI Act regarding how much time RTO office takes to issue a document through computerised process. According to Jaiswal, it takes just a few minutes in Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Aurangabad RTO offices but in Nagpur it takes many days. Jaiswal told TOI he had submitted the RTI application a month back. On Tuesday, he met the deputy RTO Sahebrao Badhiye wanting to know when he would get the information. Badhiye asked him to meet his subordinates Chimnikar and Wandile.
Even after one month of submitting his query under RTI to RTO, transporter and social activist Dilip Jaiswal did not get the information. When he went to the office to know when the information will be released, he was asked to meet Kishore Chimnikar, Ram Wandile . "At around 5.30 pm when I came back to meet them, they started abusing me," he alleged. Before Jaiswal could understand anything, the RTO employees also started beating him up. Jaiswal sustained serious head injuries and blood started oozing from his forehead.
Soon onlookers intervened and Sitabuldi police were informed of the incident. Later, the police detained Chimnikar and Wandile on the basis of a complained filed by Jaiswal. Senior police inspector and in-charge of Sitabuldi police station Prakash Jadhav confirmed the incident. He, however, failed to tell whether any offence had been registered or not. Untill late in evening, no offence was registered. Sitabuldi police told TOI that the parties concerned were in the process of settling the matter. RTO Vijay Lande, who is on medical leave, could not be contacted. Eyewitnesses including social activist Sanjay Dudhe alleged that the RTO office had become a den for anti-social activities. Recently, Sitabuldi police had rounded up four criminals from the place and recovered sharp weapons from them.
He also claimed that both Chimankar and Wandile were troubling the public by not issuing learning and driving licences, registration certificates and other documents on time and expecting illegal gratification. Many people present at the RTO office demanded that a surprise check should be conducted by the RTA committee members including divisional commissioner and collector. They also said that strict action should be taken against the corrupt clerks involved in irregularities.
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