The Hindu : New Delhi News : Bid to impose penalty on defaulting officials

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 20, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Bid to impose penalty on defaulting officials

Staff Reporter

Changes sought in Grievances panel, Right to Information Act

NEW DELHI: Faced with continued defiance of its orders by various departments and officials of the Delhi Government, the Public Grievances Commission has sought statutory changes in its constitution to enable it to play a more pro-active role in imposition of penalty provisions on departments and officers not willing to implement its orders.

Flooded with large-scale applications relating to various departments including those seeking information that is in the nature of archives, the Delhi Government is also seriously considering putting in place a cut off date for providing information to applicants under the Right to Information Act.

In addition, the Law Department has been asked to examine the feasibility of adopting provisions relating to imposing penalty on those officials who refuse to part with information.

It is learnt that the PGC Chairperson, Shailja Chandra, has in a representation to the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, pointed out that the PGC being constituted through a resolution of the government had no statutory powers to recommend penalty against the defaulting officers. It has sought powers through a statute so that it could play an important role in imposition of penalty provisions. Ms. Chandra has observed that some of the Competent Authorities were not paying due attention to the replies being sent to the applicants with the result that people had to approach the Appellate Authority. She is understood to have stated that many of the ills could be taken care if the Competent Authority scrutinised the applications at the time of their receipt and helped the applicants in framing of questions properly. This could solve many problems now being faced both by the applicant and the Competent Authorities or departments. She is understood to have suggested that some modifications could be made on the pattern of the Maharashtra Act.

It is also learnt the issue of putting in place a cut off date for providing information was proposed by the Chief Secretary, S. Regunathan, recently at the meeting of the State Council on Right to Information. It was pointed out by the Secretary (Administrative Reforms), Jalaj Srivastava, who is also the link officer, during the meeting that in a large number of cases, the applicants were seeking information in old cases where the records were not available and need to be streamlined. At this juncture, the Chief Minister, who was chairing the meeting, agreed that a cut off date should be prescribed.

Mr. Regunathan suggested that the periodicity fixed under the record retention schedule could be the guiding factor in this connection. The applicants could be informed about the period up to which the specific records are kept and the record retention schedule should be placed on the website.

Furthermore, the Chief Minister also asked the Chief Secretary to examine the issue of reduction in application fee for seeking information and also reduce the fee for photocopying of the documents sought by the applicants.

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