Central Information Commission imposes fine of Rs 25000 on Delhi government

Economic Times: New Delhi: Tuesday, 07 April 2015.

In a landmark order, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has imposed maximum penalty of Rs. 25,000 on a Delhi government officer for wrongfully stopping pension of a 70-year-old poor woman and not reinstating it despite a directive from the transparency watchdog. Berating the woman officer for being adamant and getting back at the below poverty line (BPL) septuagenarian for using Right to Information Act, CIC also awarded a compensation of Rs 6,000 to the applicant. In an 11-page order, Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu threatened to initiate criminal proceedings against the officer of woman and child development department of Delhi government in case the order is not complied with within one month. The applicant found herself in a helpless situation when the Delhi government stopped paying her in January 2013 the monthly old-age pension of Rs 1,500 that had been accruing to her post office account.

Delhi government had taken a policy decision to credit this amount only to bank accounts and not accounts maintained in post offices. The senior citizen maintained that she had opened a new account in a bank and intimated the women and child department in August 2012, four months before her account was deleted. When she got no response from the government she approached a nongovernmental organisation and then filed an application under RTI in June 2013. The government, however, refused to pay her arrears or her pension. The department told her to make a fresh application. CIC found the issue a "life" related one.

In September 2014, it ordered the Delhi government department to reinstate the pension and pay damages of Rs 5,000 to the poor applicant. Despite this order, the government did not obey the directive. Last week, the Information Commissioner passed a scathing indictment of the woman officer and the government department. "It appears that the whole issue is of ego of the officers exhibiting anger for approaching through RTI and intolerance to the presence and support of NGO to the appellant. It was most unreasonable for a public servant to deny pension in unreasonable way, even after appellant opened her bank account and approached their office through RTI,"the order says.