Times of
India: Chandigarh: Friday, September 13, 2019.
Making
a senior citizen run from pillar to post for a "simple" piece of
information has left the Punjab State Information Commission unimpressed.
Taking
strong exception to inordinate delay in providing information under Right to
Information Act, the commission has deputy commissioner, Hoshiarpur, who
happens to be the first appellate authority, to get an internal audit of all
the public authorities under him to ensure compliance of the RTI Act. The
findings of the audit have to be submitted to the commission within a period of
three months.
The
bench of state information commissioner Asit Jolly with a "deep sense of
distress", observed that a senior citizen was made to run around for a
rather "simple and easy-to-search-out-and-furnish" piece of
information. He further remarked that the respondents were reluctant to provide
the requested information as right down the line from the SDM Dasuya, the Naib
Tehsildar at Tanda Urmar, the KanugoHalqa at Khudda and the Patwari at Kurala
Kalan, had failed to perform their duty as revenue officers.
Satwant
Singh, resident of district Hoshiarpur,
had sought information regarding action taken by SDM office at Dasuya on his
long pending request for rectification of land records, which were wrongly
updated in 1980. As it took five months for the appellant to get the
information after intervention of the commission, Hoshiarpur DC has been
directed to make copies of final order of the appeal and circulate amid his
subordinate officers in Hoshiarpur. The commission has sought report of number
of copies with the names, designations, mobile numbers and email addresses of
the officers these were sent to within 15 days.
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