Kaplan Herald: New Delhi: Thursday, February 01, 2018.
The Central
Information Commission has directed the to reply to a one-year-old RTI
application seeking to know the total collected by the government
post-demonetisation.
Chief
Information Commissioner R K Mathur, however, spared the Prime Minister‘s
Office from the penalty under the RTI Act after its officials tendered an
apology for the delay in responding to the RTI application.
“The
respondent is directed to advise the ‘deemed CPIO‘ viz the in-charge of the
section concerned to be careful in future and adhere to the timelines
prescribed in the RTI Act,” he said.
Under the RTI
Act, the commission is bound to levy penalty on the Central Public Information
Officer who has not responded to an RTI application within 30 days if it is
satisfied that the delay is without any reasonable cause or because of mala
fide intention.
The case
pertains to Khalid Mundappilly who had approached the Prime Minister‘s Office
on November 22, 2016 under the RTI Act after Prime Minister Narendra Modi a few
days earlier on November 8 announced the ban on currency notes of Rs 1,000 and
Rs 500.
Solving the
black money problem was one of the reasons cited by Modi for the move.
“Kindly let
me know the amount collected as black money,” Mundappilly asked.
But his query
did not receive any response within the mandatory 30 days period after which he
filed a complaint against the PMO before the commission on January 9, 2017.
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