Times of India: Madurai: Monday, May 27, 2013.
The state
information commission has slapped a penalty of Rs 25,000 on MaduraiKamaraj
University for refusing to provide information under the Right to Information
Act ( RTI) sought by a former syndicate member.
I Ismail, a
former syndicate member of the university had sought details of application
forms of candidates, who were appointed as faculty members in various
departments between 2008 and 2011, when Karpaga Kumaravel was the
vice-chancellor.
The
appointment of 129 faculty members during this period had raised outrage among
several academicians who alleged irregularities in the appointments. When
Kalyani Mathivanan took over as VC from Kumaravel, she instituted an inquiry by
a one-man committee, the findings of which are yet to be made public.
Hearing the
petition from Ismail, the state information commission had pulled up the
university, for failing to provide the sought information for more than a year
and slapped the penalty. In its order issued in the first week of May, state
information commissioner T Srinivasan, who heard the petition from Ismail, said
that though an order was passed by the commissioner on September 15 last year,
the sought information was not provided. Again, the commission had issued
another order to provide the information on February 2, 2013. "When the
public information officer of the university was asked to show-cause on why
action should not be taken against them for failing to provide information, no
reply was furnished," the order read.
"Hence,
the information sought by the petitioner under heads 3 and 4 should be provided
within 10 days, after issuance of this order and should be intimated to the
state information commission," the order stated.
"Since
no reply was furnished to show-cause for not initiating action, we assume that
there was nothing to explain and under Section 20 (1) of the Right to Information
Act, impose a penalty of Rs 25,000 on the public information officer. The sum
should be collected from the public information officer and credited to the
government. The details should then be intimated to information
commission," the order said.
"In
spite of the severe order of the state information commission, the registrar
had sent a letter stating that the records are for perusal by the one-man
committee constituted by the syndicate," said Ismail.
"Now
even after the 10-day time given by the state information commission and the
penalty, the university is yet to part with the information," Ismail rued.
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