Kaplan Herald: Gurgaon: Wednesday, April 25, 2018.
The Haryana
chief information commissioner () has directed to prepare a complete list of
files on residential and commercial sectors missing from their office, then
file FIRs for these and take action against officials responsible for their
custody.
CIC Yash Pal
Singal passed the order while hearing an appeal filed by Gurugram-based RTI
activist Aseem Takyar.
Takyar had
filed an RTI query before Huda in August 2017, seeking information on the files
for residential and commercial sectors that are missing, files which were
re-constructed as their replacement, and FIRs filed by the authority for the .
Unsatisfied by authority’s reply, Takyar filed an application before the first
appellate authority in September 2017, and finally before the commission in
December 2017.
The CIC
observed that Huda’s reply indicates no effort has been made by the authority
to prepare any list of missing files or re-constructed files, neither have FIRs
been filed for the ones missing.
The order
further observed that as per Section 4(1)(a) of the RTI Act, 2005, a public
authority has to maintain all its records.
The CIC
directed Huda to reconstruct the missing files and take action against
official(s) responsible for their custody, including registering of FIRs for
files that went missing or were destroyed, and complete all of this before June
this year.
“Non-maintenance
of such information is itself a violation of the RTI Act,” said Takyar.
Missing files
is one of Huda’s perennial problems, often making people wait for years to get
their work done.
“Lower-level
authority officials have adopted a practice of declaring files missing, after
dumping or hiding them to stall work and harass residents,” said an official,
adding files are declared missing if a resident fails to “fulfil the
lower-level official’s demands”, ie, pay bribe, and that missing files
resurface as soon as residents “fulfil the demand”.
It is a
practice that has flourished for years, in the absence of regular scrutiny by
higher-level officials, that in most cases, FIRs are refused although they are
mandatory.
To check such
corruption, Huda had introduced its online system in January, promising to
complete 32 civil works listed under citizen charter, barring issuing completion
certificates, in four working days.
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