Now, non-government officials to pay for denying info on Centre's project

Times of India: Mumbai: Friday, May 03, 2013.

For the first time, non-government officials have been hauled up for their failure to provide information on a project sponsored by the Centre. The order was passed by information commissioner D B Deshpande.

For the first time since the coming into force of the landmark Right to Information Act in 2005, IInformation commissioner D B Deshpande has put the blame on non-government officials for their failure to provide information on a centrally sponsored project.

On March 10, 2010, Babulal Devchand, an activist from Aurangabad, had sought information on the status of the implementation of schemes under the centrally sponsored Bharat Nirman projects in a few districts in the Marathwada region.

The public information officer for the rural water supply scheme provided "routine information" to Devchand but expressed his inability to provide specifics information of certain projects on the grounds that his office did not have the records.

The information officer said the schemes were implemented by committees headed by non-government officials at the local level and all the documents were available with the office-bearers of such panels. The information officer also told the commission that the funds were directly given to the committees for implementation of schemes. When the information officer sent letters to the committees' office-bearers, particularly the chairman and the secretary, they refused to accept the same without assigning any reasons.

In his three-page order, Deshpande observed that since all the funds released by the Centre were entrusted with the chairman and the secretary of the committee, under the Right to Information Act, it was their responsibility to provide specifics to the applicant. In fact, he said, under the Act, they are the public information officers and responsible for providing information.

"I have come to the conclusion that since they (chairman and secretary of the committee have failed to provide specific information to the applicant, there was blatant violation of the RTI Act. They are liable to pay a fine," Deshpande said.

According to the RTI Act provisions, if an individual is to be slapped with a fine, then it is the commission's responsibility to issue a show-cause notice to the information officers.

Deshpande has now issued a show-cause notice to all the office-bearers of the committee and asked the Aurangabad zilla parishad chief executive officer to serve show-cause notices on all those concerned.According to an RTI activist, it was for the first time that an information commissioner has fixed the responsibility for dereliction of duty on a non-government official. So far, the responsibility was on government officials, now non-government officials too are held responsible,'' he said.