New Delhi, Nov 24 (IANS) Refusing information to an octogenarian under the Right To Information Act has cost a Delhi government official dear.

He will have Rs.4,500 deducted from his salary every month for the next five months as penalty for violating the RTI act provisions. The salary cut was imposed on the official by the Central Information Commission (CIC).

The applicant, Radhey Shyam Aggarwal, 80, had approached the Department of Trade and Taxes of the Delhi government in June asking for the copy of an affidavit, which someone had allegedly falsely given in his name to get a Value Added Tax number.

However, the then Public Information Officer (PIO) Arun Kumar Mishra of the department refused to give him the affidavit copy, stating that the information sought was ‘prohibited’ under the Delhi Value Added Tax (DVAT) Act.

Aggarwal then approached the First Appellate Authority (FAA) of the trade and taxes department but was again refused the information.

‘I have gone through the reply given by the PIO, and do not find any infirmity in the same. It is true that the PIO is prohibited under Section 98 of the DVAT Act to divulge the information to a third party,’ the FAA ruled.

Upset with the order, the appellant then filed an appeal with the CIC.

Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi noted in his order: ‘…PIO and FAA have both failed to discharge their duties under the RTI Act. The PIO without any application of mind has refused to give the information.’

‘The PIO refused to give him the information purportedly. The FAA, in what appears to be collusion to deny and harass the citizen, suddenly claimed that the department gets the information in a fiduciary relationship,’ Gandhi observed.

The PIO finally gave Agarwal the information after 90 days.

The CIC in October issued a show cause notice to Arun Kumar Mishra, for not supplying the complete required information within 30 days as mandated under the RTI act.

It asked Mishra to submit his written submissions on ‘why penalty should not be imposed on him’.

In his written submission, Mishra claimed that he had not realised that the applicant was asking for information about an affidavit supposed to have been filed by him (the applicant himself).

The CIC ruled that this was a fit case for penalising the official for refusing to give the information without any valid grounds.

‘Since the delay in providing the information has been 90 days, the commission is passing an order penalizing Arun Kumar Mishra Rs.22,500 (Rs.250 per day),’ the order noted.

The commission has directed the Delhi’s chief secretary to recover the amount from Mishra’s salary in five months starting from December by deducting Rs.4,500 every month.

‘It is impossible to believe that the PIO who is a senior officer and can read and write English did not realize that he was withholding the affidavit of Radhey Shyam Aggarwal from himself,’ the commission observed.

Ajay Aggarwal, the son of Radhey Shyam Aggarwal, told IANS: ‘Three years ago, one of our distant relatives Arun Kumar Gupta had applied for a VAT number by filing a false affidavit. He had formed a company named Aggarwal Traders for unknown malafide intentions. When we came to know about it from our sources we complained to the department and it cancelled the VAT number.’

‘We then filed a RTI with the department in order to get a copy of the false affidavit,’ Ajay said.

- Indo-Asian News Service

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