Times of India: Nagpur: Saturday,
June 22, 2013.
Mumbai police
have booked under several charges a Nagpur-based Right to Information (RTI) Act
activist after she allegedly protested her ouster from appeal proceedings in
Urban Development Department (UDD) last week.
Ankita Shah,
24, who has been made accused in the case, has also filed a cross complaint
against UDD principal secretary Shreekant Singh and the police for illegally
detaining her at Marine Drive police station. Daughter of grain trader Kamlesh
Shah, Ankita has exposed several irregularities in the functioning of different
government departments and also flouting of norms in giving sanctions to the
big projects using RTI.
"I was
taken to police station at exactly 1.53 pm and released at 9.10 pm. The cops
did not inform me anything about the action they were taking against me. They
were not ready to pay heed to my side of the story and reluctant to receive the
complaint I wanted to lodge against the UDD principal secretary as he used
police machinery to remove me from his office during appeal," said Ankita.
She has been booked for allegedly obstructing a government servant from discharging
his duty, criminal trespass, and threatening.
She later
filed a RTI application to know what action were taken against her at police
station. Ankita said police did not inform her about the offence they were
registering against her which she came to know through media. Ankita had gone
to intervene in the appeal on June 15 against the cancellation of the lease of
Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) land on which Pravesh Enterprises had erected a
six-storeyed cold storage at Chikhli. The cold storage building had collapsed
on January 30 last year killing 18 people and injuring many more.
Apart from
the Pravesh Enterprise, Punjab National Bank too was a party to the appeal
which was also attended by the NIT officials and others before the UDD
principal secretary Singh. Ankita had challenged Singh who wanted the activist
to remain out of the proceedings. The UDD officials informed the control room
that alerted the Marine Drive police station. Ankita was dragged to Marine Line
police station.
Ankita said
she had every right to intervene in the appeal hearing. "As a member of
the public, I am qualified to intervene into a matter where so many lives were
lost and also as victim. My father had faced huge loss due to the collapse. I
had accordingly written to Singh," she said.
Deputy
commissioner of police, Zone-I, Mumbai, Ravindra Shisve said Ankita was not
illegally detained but acted upon as per the legal provision. "We have
received the complaint lodged by her too and it is being given for conducting
an inquiry," said Shisve. "We had to react after the call from the
government office where she was arguing or else we would have faced
criticism," he said.
.JPG)
.JPG)
