The Asian Age: Mumbai: Tuesday, May 23, 2017.
The vigilance department of the state housing
authority Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) in a reply
to a Right To Information (RTI) application filed by The Asian Age has said
that it does not have the information on the number of complaints filed against
Mhada officials as it has not gathered the information, citing the nature of
the information to be vast. The admission comes at a time when both the
vigilance department and the state housing department have launched a probe
against five Mhada engineers who allegedly paid bribe worth crores of rupees to
former Mhada chief executive officer (CEO) S.S. Zende to get transferred or
promoted to plum posts just days before Mr Zende’s retirement in April 2017. Mr
Zende denies the allegation.
In addition to not being able to give information
about the number of complaints against Mhada officials, the vigilance
department cited the “same reason” for not giving information on the nature of
complaints it received between January 2010 and March 2017. In response to the
first query, the department said the information that was being sought was more
than six years old and the nature of the information sought was vast.
The Asian Age had filed an RTI query, dated April
20, 2017, requesting to provide information on the number of complaints the
vigilance department received between January 2010 and March 2017. The query
also asked how many complaints against Mhada officials were genuine and how
many First Information Reports (FIR) were filed against the accused officials.
The vigilance department, in a reply dated May 16,
2017, said, “The information asked hereby by the applicant is more than six
years and has not been gathered or collated by this department. I would like to
request that the applicant should take information on particular complaint
filed and should avail the copy of the same by paying the charges as
applicable.”
In case of information on the number of complaints
being genuine and how many FIRs were filed, the department transferred the RTI
query, saying it is the administrative department of Mhada that will have this
information.
When contacted, S.V. Valekar, public information
officer, vigilance department, said, “You should ask for information on
specific incident as the information asked is too much and we will have to look
into the records for knowing the number of complaints filed.”
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