The Hindu : New Delhi News : Summons for Post Master General

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 15, 2006
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New Delhi

New Delhi

Summons for Post Master General

Prashant Pandey

To explain why mail under certificate goes missing

NEW DELHI: Irked by a series of complaints about missing mail, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has decided to ask the Post Master General of Delhi to appear before it and explain how priority mail posted "Under Postal Certificate" goes missing.

The CIC's decision came while disposing of an appeal in which the appellant, Jagdish Ambedkar, had sought information from the Supreme Court on whether an officer of the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police was the competent authority to propose initiation of an inquiry against a subordinate, conduct the inquiry, file a charge-sheet and also award punishment. In this connection, the appellant had posted a Right to Information (RTI) Act application to the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the Supreme Court on February 22. Following no response, he filed the first appeal, as allowed under the RTI Act, on April 18 before the Appellate Authority (AA) of the Supreme Court.

When he still got no response, he approached the CIC on June 22.

The appellant requested the CIC to direct the Supreme Court CPIO to furnish the information sought by him within seven days.

He also wanted the CIC to impose penalties on the CPIO and the AA for not abiding by the prescribed time limit, as mandated under the Act.

In their response to the CIC's notice on the appeal, the Additional Registrar (Administration) (CPIO) and Registrar (Administration) (AA) of the Supreme Court sent a detailed reply indicating that they had not received any application and the fee.

On perusal of the file on the other hand, the CIC found that while the appellant produced the proof of letters being posted as priority "Under Postal Certificate", there was no proof with him of his applications having actually been received.

Also, the appellant had not mentioned the exact designations and correct names of the information officers to whom the application was to be sent. However, Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah opined in his decision this week that the sender's fault (of not mentioning correct names and designations) did not exempt the Postal Department from its responsibility of ensuring that the mail sent on priority "Under Postal Certificate is actually delivered to the correct person or else returned to the sender as "undelivered".

Priority

"The Post Master General, Delhi, will, therefore, be asked to appear before us together with the appellant on February 19, 2007, to explain why correspondence sent under priority of UPC remains undelivered... this has become necessary because we have been receiving a series of complaints of UPC mail not being delivered to the destination for which it is meant," observed Mr. Habibullah.

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