CIC asks postal department to make public the 100 biggest dormant accounts
19 Sep, 2013
An application was filed with the Department of Post under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to get the details of the 100 biggest unclaimed accounts along with the amount and date since when they have been lying dormant.
As the desired information was not provided to the applicant, he approached the Central Information Commission (CIC) contending that the postal department had, in an RTI reply, accepted that around 2.49 crore dormant accounts were in existence with a total unclaimed amount of Rs. 752.44 crore.
The applicant alleged that the department had not taken any steps to return the unclaimed money to legitimate claimants and claimed that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs have already issued guidelines to take proactive steps to refund unclaimed balance to legitimate claimants or to transfer the amount in accounts lying dormant for a specified period. Agreeing with the contentions of the applicant, the CIC held in the order the CPIO, Department of Post to furnish the requested information to the applicant free of cost and within 45 days.