Times of India: Mumbai: Wednesday,
June 29, 2016.
The state
chief information commissioner has imposed a Rs 10,000 penalty on a BMC
engineer after he failed to appear during an appeal hearing for denying
information under the RTI act.
The engineer
paid the money to the applicant from his salary through two cheques of Rs 5,000
each on June 21. The 73-year-old applicant said the casual approach of the
engineer attracted the penalty.
"They
take RTI applications very casually and always deny information after stating
that the details do not come under the RTI," said the applicant Aziz
Amreliwala.
Amreliwala
used to live in one ground plus three building-Yusuf Mahal-in Marol Maroshi and
had a shop on the ground floor. It was declared a dilapidated building and in
2005 the BMC demolished an "illegal" shed Amreliwala had put up
inside the building compound. The BMC demolished the building in May 2014 as it
was dangerous to live in.
Last year
Amreliwala filed an RTI application with the BMC's building proposal department
seeking information related to the demolition of Yusuf Mahal. He also filed
another application asking for information related to a shed put up by a
hospital years ago in the nearby area. The officer-engineer failed to provide
him the information in the stipulated timeframe of 30 days. Amreliwala
approached the first appellate authority who instructed the engineer to provide
the information. But, when the engineer failed to comply the applicant
approached the state chief information commissioner, Ratnakar Gaikwad.
The order of
the chief information commissioner (a copy of which is with TOI) reads,
"During hearing it emerged that information was not provided to applicant
within stipulated time frame which is violation of the RTI act". It
further reads, "The information officer should compensate the applicant
for delaying the information from his salary under the section 19 (8) of the
RTI act."
.JPG)
.JPG)
