CIC orders Chief Secy to conduct probe, file complaint.

Indian Express; Pritha Chatterjee; Sunday, May 01, 2011,

New Delhi : Over a month after an RTI reply revealed that the Delhi government’s Health department had misplaced an inquiry file, relating to the death of a 74-year-old woman at the ICU of the government-run GB Pant Hospital following a power failure, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Chief Secretary to conduct a probe in the matter. The CIC order has also stated that if the file is found to have gone missing, the Chief Secretary should file a police complaint, naming the person who last handled it, before June 10.

The patient, Sharda Gaur, was admitted in the coronary care unit of the hospital’s ICU following an angioplasty. No power backup was available in this critical care section, and the patient died on October 13, 2009.

Newsline had earlier reported that Gaur’s son-in-law Raaj Mangal Prasad had filed an RTI query in March last year to find out the status of the inquiry launched by then health minister Kiran Walia immediately after Gaur’s death.

The Health department had replied “...the relevant file is not traceable in various branches of the Health and Family Welfare (H&FW) department, despite of best efforts”.

The strongly-worded order passed by Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi states “the commission directs the Chief Secretary, Delhi government, to enquire in this matter of the file being stolen/lost and fix responsibility on the persons concerned.The Chief Secretary will also inform the complainant and the commission on whether another committee has been constituted to inquire into this, or whether when a file is lost, the cause for forming the committee is also lost.” It further adds that “if the file has indeed been stolen/lost, then a police complaint will be filed naming the person who last handled the file, before 10 June.”

Complainant Raaj Mangal Prasad told Newsline that an FIR should be filed to ultimately fix responsibility for destroying information, as per Section 19 of the RTI act. “This is the usual tactic adopted by the government to label a file as ‘missing’ whenever action is expected against senior officials. Unless an FIR is filed, and a police probe is initiated, there will be no deterrent to this practice.”