The Sentinel: GUWAHATI: Wednesday,
April 20, 2016.
Assam Chief
Information Commissioner (CIC) Himangshu Sekhar Das has asked the Directorate
of Health Services, Assam to pay Rs 1 lakh to Purabi Kataki through the Deputy
Commissioner of Sivasagar before May 31, 2016 for its failure to provide her
information regarding a medical bill of her deceased husband.
According to
reports, on April 21, 2012 Purabi Kataki did file an application through the
RTI before the Directorate of Health Services, Assam seeking information on the
state of her husband’s medical bill. She had submitted the medical bill on May
28, 2003. Through the RTI application she wanted to know as to why her
husband’s medical bill had not been approved and how long would the approval of
the bill take. If the Directorate was not going to approve the bill, she also
wanted to know reason behind that.
Since there
had been no response to the RTI application from the end of the Directorate,
Kataki made her first appeal to the Directorate of Health on October 29, 2012
seeking information she had sought earlier. She, however, failed to get any
response from the Directorate of Health Service this time as well. That led her
to make her second appeal to the Assam Information Commission in this regard on
December 27, 2012. In her appeal, she made a plea before the State Information
Commission for the repayment of the medical cost of her husband with interest.
The State
Information Commission took up the case {KP(M)118/2013}, heard it and gave its
verdict against the Directorate of Health Services. The Commission has asked
the Directorate to pay Kataki Rs 1 lakh – Rs 62,605 as medical cost, Rs 25,395
as interest at the rate of 10 per cent per anum, and Rs 12,000 as compensation
for not being able to provide information to the applicant on time – through the
Sivasagar Deputy Commissioner by May 31, 2016.
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