BDA officials to pay penalty for violating RTI Act
15 Jun, 2013An application was filed with the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to get details of land allotted to the head of Doordarshan Kendra in Bangalore.
In the reply to the application, the public information officer and Deputy Secretary of Bangalore Development Authority provided only incomplete information and didn’t provide any reasons for not furnishing the remaining information. Also, he didn’t acknowledge being State Public Information Officer in the signed letter sent to the applicant.
When the matter reached the Karnataka State Information Commission (SIC), it issued a show cause notice to the PIO as to why a penalty should not be imposed on him. As the PIO didn’t respond to the show cause notice, the commission assumed him to be guilty and imposed a penalty of Rs. 5,000 on him under Section 20 (1) of the RTI Act. Further, the SIC also directed BDA to pay a compensation of Rs. 5,000 to the appellant.