KGMU exam controller fined for RTI violation

Times of India: luck now: Monday, 06 October 2014.

A penalty of Rs 25,000 has been imposed on KGMU controller of examination, SK Singh, for continuously violating orders of the information commissioner passed on January 2.

In the Shashi Shekhar Singh Vs PRO, registrar KGMU office Lucknow case, under section 20 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, information commissioner Arvind Singh Bisht directed the vice-chancellor of KGMU to give special adverse entry in the character roll of the officer and inform the commission about it.

Dr D P Singh, representative of the applicant Shashi Shekhar Singh, had filed an application under RTI Act requesting the information commission to direct the respondent to make available photocopies of the main page and all the written pages of the answer-sheet of part-I and part-II of a theory paper of ophthalmology subject of MBBS (final) Part-I examination, of March 2011. The respondent, despite the commission's orders, did not make the required papers available to the applicant.

The commission in its several orders issued from time to time had directed the respondent to give information sought by the applicant. The representative of the respondent presented the required answer-sheet before the commission on Wednesday but later held it back with a promise that its photocopies would be given to the applicant the same day itself but were not presented even after three hours of the hearing. Sushil Kumar Srivastava, who appeared on behalf the respondent, told the commission that S K Singh, controller of examination, had refused to present photocopies of documents as they are confidential.

Taking serious note of the action of the respondent for not making available the photocopies to the applicant, despite the commission's orders, the information commissioner took the aforementioned action. The commission has issued notice to Singh to appear before the commission on the next date of hearing along with the photocopies of the answer-sheet and written explanation else it will be presumed that the respondent does not want to say anything in this regard and the commission then under sections 20 (1) and 20 (2) of the RTI Act would dispose of the matter in compliance of the orders issued by it. The next date of the hearing is January 8, 2015.