Friday, August 19, 2016

Info panel slaps Rs1-lakh penalty...

Chandigarh Tribune‎‎‎: Ludhiana: Friday, August 19, 2016.
Taking a serious note of non-compliance of the provisions of the Right to Information Act, the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC), Punjab, SS Channi, has imposed a penalty of Rs 25,000 each on assistant town planners (ATPs)-cum-Public Information Officers Bhupinder Singh, Ankit Midha, Danish and building inspector Navnit Khokhar, who is also APIO (designated as PIO) at the Municipal Corporation here.
Passing orders on appeal case 1681 of 2016 filed by Rohit Sabharwal, president of the Council of RTI Activists, the CIC noted that the said employees of the MC building branch had failed to provide information on 90 commercial buildings in Zone C even after the orders passed by the first appellate authority, Ghanshyam Thori, Additional Commissioner, and later by the State Information Commission.
The CIC observed: “Such kind of failure on the part of the respondents is totally intolerable and if they are spared or not giving any punishment that will give an impression to the rest of the respondents that they can just get away with non-compliance of the RTI Act which has been enacted  to ensure participative nature of management between the public and the public authorities and  also to know as to what is happening behind the closed doors with regard to the governance affairs of the public authorities and their functioning.”
Ruling that the written reply filed by the respondent MC officials was not considered satisfactory and it was a fit case for imposition of penalty, the CIC ordered: “Under these circumstances, I am left with no other option but to decide the question of imposition of penalty and quantum thereof upon Bhupinder Singh, Danesh, PIO, Ankit Midha, PIO and Navneet Khokhar, Building Inspector-cum-APIO (deemed PIO), all from the Municipal Corporation, Ludhiana. In this case the intervening period is too large and in addition their failure to comply with the orders of the FAA and also of the Commission. Accordingly, a penalty of Rs 25,000 is imposed on each one of them.”
The Commission further directed that the amount of penalty (Rs 25000) should be deducted from their salary in two equal monthly instalments and be deposited in the government treasury under head 0070-Other Administrative Services-60-Other Services-800-Other Receipts-86-Fees under the Right to Information Act.
Building inspectorcharge-sheeted
In the meantime, acting on the report submitted by the Senior Town Planner and the Municipal Town Planner, the Local Government Department, Punjab, has issued a charge sheet to building inspector Navneet Khokhar while also shifting him to Moga. The action has been taken against the building inspector for dereliction of duty and failure to provide information about illegal commercial buildings to his superior officials.