Mumbai Mirror: Mumbai: Friday, 11 July 2014.
CID officer
to pay Rs 30,000 for not replying to the application in 2011 from brother of
1987 murder victim.
The State
Information Commissioner (SIC), Konkan Bhavan, has ordered the Superintendent
of the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at Konkan Bhavan to pay Rs
30,000 as fine for not providing information under RTI to the brother of a man
who was murdered in 1987 in Kaman,Vasai.
In her order,
SIC Thanksy Francis Thekkekare said the applicant, Gangadhar Mhatre (60) had
undergone mental stress due to the delay. He had sought information on the
murder of his elder brother, Yadav. An activist who took up cases against the
land mafia, Mhatre was murdered on June 29, 1987.
Thekkekare
said the CID official will have to pay the penalty from his own pocket under
Section 19 (8)(k) of the RTI Act, 2005 as he has deliberately delayed in
providing information to Mhatre, even though the latter had applied for information
under RTI in October 2011. No time frame has been affixed.
"My
elder brother was murdered in 1987. Police arrested the wrong man, while the
real culprits are roaming scot-free. I had taken up the fight on behalf of my
deceased brother. Instead of helping me, the CID delayed things deliberately. I
needed their help as the matter is before the Bombay High Court which has
ordered a fresh police probe into the murder," Gangadhar claimed.
"This
judgment is a big victory for us. The real culprits are roaming free while an
innocent man was held for a crime he didn't even commit," he alleged. On
June 28, 1987, Yadav Mhatre, a resident of Kaman, Vasai, was on his way to the
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay, where he worked as a fitter. He
was accompanied by his brother Gangadhar, the lone eyewitness in the case.
According to
Gangadhar, eight men suddenly surrounded Mhatre, attacked him with stones and
shot him. The family suspects Mhatre was killed because he would take up cases
of tribals whose lands had been taken over by mafia.
Gangadhar
informed the Vasai Gaon police and named Govind Laxman Patil, his sons Mahadev
and Kisan, Babban Gharat, Kanti Dhumal, Atmaram Jadhav, Kisan Patil and Babban
Patil as accused in the FIR.
Police
subsequently arrested the accused and recovered the murder weapon, after which
the home minister ordered CID to take over the case.
However, CID
after investigation set free the eight accused, and arrested Dilip Tumbda, then
an 18-year-old labourer, instead. His father Ganpat, brothers Babu and Motiram
Mali were also held, but released later.
After 22
years of incarceration in Thane jail, Tumbda was finally acquitted on June 29,
2009.
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