Times
of India: Meerut: Friday, 08 January 2016.
The Uttar
Pradesh State Information Commission (UPSIC) on Thursday slapped a fine of Rs
25,000 each on 12 government officials of several departments for delaying
information under Right to Information (RTI) Act. Out of the 12 people fined on
Monday, 10 people are from Bijnor and the remaining two are from Rampur.
"All
these 12 officials had either not replied to RTI queries submitted by people or
had replied but not given any reason behind not being able to give the
information. A show cause notice was issued to all of them to either submit a
reply to the query or be present in UPSIC headquarters. But because none of the
conditions were agreed to, a fine of Rs 3 lakh has been slapped in total,"
said Hafiz Usman state information commissioner (SIC) who levied the fine,
talking to TOI.
The 10
officials from Bijnor include sub-divisional magistrate (Chandpur); district
manager (UP State Fertiliser and Essential Commodities Corporation); executive
engineer (Eastern Ganga Canal, section 5, Najibabad); Zila Panchayat Raj
Adhikari; district backward class welfare officer; Gram Panchayat officer
(Baghala village); block development officer (Afzalgarh block); assistant
adhikari (minor irrigation department); executive engineer (Nagar Palika) and
public information officer (labour commission). The remaining two from Rampur
include city magistrate and tehsildar (Sadar tehsil).
When TOI
contacted Indramani Tripathi, officiating district magistrate for Bijnor, to
inquire about the high number of RTI defaulters in the district, he said,
"This is indeed a matter of concern; but I have always told the officials
to reply to RTIs on time. We will issue fresh instructions to everyone so that
they revert to RTI queries in a timely manner."
The
government treasury will realize the fine by deducting it from the salary of
the official in installments. In case the order is not followed the senior
officials would be held responsible.
When TOI
contacted Anupam Rai, Zila Panchayat Raj Adhikari, one of the 10 officials
fined, he said, "We had two RTI queries submitted to our office which were
replied to five months ago. I am surprised about the fine because we don't have
any pending case at our office. I have no information about it so far and will
inquire about it."
Over two
weeks ago, UPSIC slapped a fine of Rs 25,000 each on 13 government officials
for the same reasons. Nine people from Muzaffarnagar and one from Shamli were
in the list of defaulters then. (With inputs from Harveer Dabas)
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