Times of India: Nagpur: Wednesday,
April 13, 2016.
he Nagpur
bench of State Information Commission (SIC) levied a fine of Rs5,000 on the
public information officer of town planning department here for not complying
with its earlier order for providing answers to queries under Right to
Information (RTI) Act, 2005. Commissioner Vasant Patil directed to recover this
amount from information officer and be paid to RTI activist Mangesh Gakre, who
had lodged a complaint.
The judge
also granted last chance to first appellate officer seeking explanation from
him on why disciplinary action shouldn't be initiated against him for providing
incomplete information to the complainant, despite SIC's orders.
According to
Gakre, he had filed a complaint with SIC on August 10 last year, regarding
non-compliance of its orders made on July 7, 2012. He contended that the
information officer had provided him with incorrect and then incomplete
information. In its 2012 order, the SIC had directed first appellate officer to
fix responsibility on officials concerned and take action against them. It had
also told officer to submit compliance report with the judge within two months.
As town
planning officials failed to comply with SIC's 2012 orders, Gakre lodged
another complaint demanding Rs20,000 from the erring officials for mental and
physical harassment meted out to him for over three years, by not providing
information. He claimed that the officials were allegedly indulged into
contempt action, as they failed to submit compliance report.
Quoting
documents, the SIC declared that the officials failed to provide him complete
information as per its earlier orders and also failed to submit compliance
report, which it termed as "serious violation". It stated that SIC's
decisions are binding on all government officials as per Section 19 (7) of the
RTI Act. Even the Maharashtra government had made it mandatory to comply with
SIC's orders through its notification of June 10, 2006.
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