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| SIC reprimands Under Secretary PHE-Irrigation | | Rs 7500 to be deducted from his salary | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Nov 13: Acting tough against the Government officials for showing official negligence towards implementation of Right to Information Act (RTI) in the state the State Information Commission (SIC) has ordered for imposing penalty against the Public Information Officer (PIO) of Public Health Engineering, Irrigation and Flood Control Department (PHE - Irrigation-FC) at Civil Secretariat Jammu. An amount of Rs 7500 would be deducted from the salary of the said PIO who happens to be the Under Secretary of the PHE- Irrigation and FC department J&K Government.
As per details one Haji Nazir Ahmad Shah filed an RTI application before the PIO Irrigation Department seeking certain information. In accordance with the provisions of Section 7 of the State RTI Act, the PIO had to provide this information as expeditiously as possible but not later than 30 days which was not done. Having failed to receive any information Haji Nazir Ahmad Shah filed first appeal before the First Appellate Authority (FAA) i.e Special Secretary to Government, PHE -Irrigation and FC Department which also was not adjudicated by the FAA. Consequently a second appeal under Section 16 of the State RTI Act was filed before the State Information Commission (SIC) praying the Commission for a direction for dissemination of the information. The second appeal was adjudicated upon by the SIC vide its order dated: 8.11.2012. During the hearing at SIC penalty proceedings under Section 17 of the State RTI Act were initiated and PIO was required to explain why penalty may not be imposed on him from the due date of passing the order till the date order was actually passed and served upon the information seeker.
In response to show cause notice the defaulting PIO cum Under Secretary admitted of having received RTI application on 16.7.2012 and placed entire blame on SO/HA for putting up "note very late". The information was not received by the appellant till the date of hearing before the SIC i.e. November 7, 2013 and it was during the course of hearing before the Commission that the copy of information was handed over to the information seeker.
During the hearing, the State Information Commission (SIC) was misled by PIO stating that information was sent by registered post. But after the verification of dispatch register by SIC officials of PHE Deptt it was found that order was sent through ordinary post. It was alleged by the PIO that the junior officials had caused delay and misled the PIO to give a wrong statement before the SIC regarding the dispatch of order under Section 7 of the State RTI Act.
It was further pleaded by the PIO during hearing at SIC that as the delay was regretted by the staff, therefore, request has been made for dropping of the proceedings. The commission however, did not find any merit in the plea and hence imposed penalty. |
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