Taking RTI For Granted Lands BMC Engineer Into Trouble

The Indian Express‎‎: Mumbai: Friday, July 01, 2016.

Rs. 10,000 was imposed as a penalty on a Bombay Municipal Corporation engineer for taking RTI summon for granted. The state chief information commissioner has imposed the penalty on a BMC engineer after he failed to appear for hearing on a PIL 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, Aziz Amreliwala, said the casual approach of the engineer attracted the penalty. Amreliwala lived in a three-storey building, Yusuf Mahal in Marol Maroshi and had a shop on the ground floor. The building was declared dilapidated. In 2005, the BMC demolished an "illegal" shed that 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. The officer-engineer failed to provide him the information in the stipulated time frame of 30 days.