Times
of India: Agra: Saturday, 17 October 2015.
The state
information commissioner has imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh each on two officials one the current registrar of BR Ambedkar University and the other a man who
had earlier held that post for not responding in the mandatory 30 days to
applications filed under Right to Information Act. They were also accused of
delaying distribution of mark-sheets and degrees.
Registrar KN
Singh of Dr BR Ambedkar University and BK Pandey, who had earlier served in
that position but currently serves as registrar of Shree Veer Bahadur Singh
Poorvanchal University, Jaunpur, are the two officials to face the fine imposed
by state information commissioner Gajendra Yadav.
The fine was
imposed after a large number of students complained to the state information
commission that they had received no response to RTI queries. The information
commission said 100 students got responses to their queries soon after the fine
was imposed.
A press
release issued by the office of the state information commission said both
officials had been found guilty of violating provisions of the RTI Act, 2005.
The
commission also reprimanded university authorities for delaying distribution of
mark-sheers and degree certificates. The information commission said at least
16 students had complained that they had received no response to RTI queries.
Soon after the fine was imposed, a student named Rukkaiya from Hathras received
her BA degree certificate - she had finished her degree in the year 2003!
Pradeep Kumar of Jalaun, who too had filed an RTI query, was granted his
Bachelor of Business Administration degree soon after the fine was imposed. He
had finished his graduation in 2001.
Information commissioner,
Gajendra Yadav said it was the duty of university authorities to provide
details and mark-sheets to each student. That is a duty they ought never to
neglect, he said. The commissioner has also summoned the two officials for a
hearing of the matter on December 24 this year.
KN Singh,
registrar of Dr BR Ambedkar University told TOI he had never neglected to offer
responses to RTI queries. Asked why, then, he had been fined, he said he had
been unable to present himself before the information commission during the
last hearing of the matter.
Results of
several examinations conducted at the university between 2010 and 2015 are
still pending. Mark-sheets have not been issued to many students who finished
their studies here in the year 2000.
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