College Principal penalised for not providing information within time
22 Nov, 2013
A professor of the Post-graduate Government College, Sector 11, Chandigarh had filed an application with the same college under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to get information about his Annual Confidential Report/Annual Performance Appraisal Report (ACR/APAR).
The Chief Public Information Officer (CPIO) and the Principal of the college didn't provide the requested information to the applicant and instead wrote to the Director (Higher Education) asking him if the sought information could be disclosed.
Even after the first appellate authority ordered for the disclosure of information to the appellant, the same was not provided to him after which the appellant filed a second appeal. The copy of ACR was provided to the appellant only after the information commission ordered for the same.
In the same matter, the Central Information Commission (CIC) found the Principal guilty of intentionally blocking the information as he had asked the applicant to establish his identity despite knowing his identity. The CIC also rejected the CPIO's contention that he was ignorant of the RTI rules and slapped a penalty of Rs. 25,000 on him to be deducted from his salary in five installments.