DNA: Mumbai: Sunday,
April 06, 2014.
In this month
alone, the state information commission has asked the BMC to pay citizens Rs
80,000 for not providing them information they had sought under RTI, as well as
harassing them in the process.
In its April
3 issue, dna had reported that BMC was asked to pay four citizens Rs 1.15 lakh
as compensation in this connection. Of this amount, Rs 60,000 was to be paid to
one person alone on two orders passed on April 1.
And in two
orders the information commission passed on April 2, BMC was ordered to pay two
different applicants Rs 10,000 each. These orders were passed by the state
chief information commissioner, Ratnakar Gaikwad.
The two
applicants are Jeetendra Sawant, a resident of Kurla, and Suryaprakash Solunke
of Dahisar.
Sawant had
demanded from the corporation an amount that was to be returned to him since
2010. He had deposited some amount with the corporation for transfer/handover
of a property. The BMC did not return the money to him. He filed an application
seeking to know what exactly the corporation had done to ensure that the money
was returned to him. But the public information officer (PIO) did not provide
Sawant any information despite the first appellate authority's (FAA) directing
him to do so.
It was in
this connection that the information commission pulled up the PIO and asked BMC
to pay the applicant Rs 10,000 as compensation. Invoking the Government
Servants Regulation of Transfers and Prevention of Delay in Discharge of
Official Duties Act (Act 21 of 2006), the commission asked the BMC commissioner
to conduct an inquiry and fix the responsibility in the case.
Solunke was
asked to be compensated because R/South (Kandivli) ward had refused him
information on some illegal construction. The PIO and the FAA did not attend
the hearing, and the information commission observed that it showed the
irresponsibility on their part. Stating that the information sought was in
public interest, the commission asked the people concerned to provide Solunke
the information he had sought and also compensate him.
When
contacted, municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte was not available for comment.
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