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PIO not penalised, RTI applicant sends back compensation cheque to SIC -Partha Sarathi Biswas
-The Indian Express


Researcher Meenal Rege has returned a cheque for Rs 1,000 to the office of the Pune bench of State Information Commission (SIC). This is the second time she is doing so. Rege says the cheque, sent to her by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) as a compensation on the SIC's order after she was denied information under the Right to Information Act, 2005, had "added insult to my injury".

When she returned the cheque to the SIC for the first time, the latter had sent it back to her. But peeved with the SIC judgment of only ordering a compensation and not penalising the public information commissioner (PIO) concerned, Rege is firm on her stand to not accept the amount and has sent the cheque to the SIC again.

In 2009, Rege had filed an RTI application seeking a copy of the sanctioned plan of a building in Shivajinagar. "Though sanctioned plans are supposed to be given to any individual upon the receiving of a simple application, I was unable to obtain the same. So, I had to resort to RTI," she said. Replying to her application, the PIO had stated that the sanctioned plan of the building was not available, following which moved the first appellate authority, who in this case was the PMC zonal commissioner (Zone 1).

"As per the procedure of the RTI, while replying to applications under RTI, the PIO is supposed to give the name and address of the first appellate authority, which was not done in my case. Also, as I was not happy with the answer given, I went for the first appeal," she said.

During the hearing of Rege's first appeal, the appellate authority ordered that the said plans be made available to her within eight days, and instructed the records in-charge at Nanawada and the office of the city engineer in charge of the building permission department at PMC to coordinate. "The maps, which were ‘unavailable' till just a few weeks ago, were immediately made available to me, from which I drew the conclusion that the PIO was intentionally hiding the information and hence I went for a second appeal," she said.

State Information Commissioner M H Shah, while hearing the second appeal filed by Rege in December 2012, ordered that she be paid Rs 1,000 from the office expenses of the PIO, which in this case was the deputy engineer's office (VI) of the building permission department, "as means of compensation". This amount, as per the order issued earlier this year, was "to compensate for all the expenses that Rege had undergone including court fee stamps and the travels she had to make for filing the appeals".

Subsequently, the PMC drew the cheque and mailed it to her in the first week of February. "As soon as I received the cheque, I returned it to the office of SIC, as I felt it was adding insult to my injury. During the hearing, I had pointed out that the RTI Act has provision of fining the PIO in case information is not given on time and had asked the SIC to invoke the said Section. The fine would have acted as a deterrent for officers from denying information to the applicants," she said.

On the receipt of her letter with the cheque enclosed, the office of SIC, reposted the cheque to her asking her to return it to the PMC in case she did not require it. "The return of the cheque, I felt, was adding further insult to my injury. Also, as the money was to be taken from the official funds of the officers, and not from their payment, it was not punishing them for their deed and so I returned the cheque again," she said.

Shah refused to comment on the matter.