Penalty for delay - PIO: application was lost in a bag full of other letters – CIC: misplacing the RTI application in the midst of other bagful of letters cannot be a ground for denying information - devise a foolproof procedure in future
8 Sep, 2013Penalty for delay - PIO: application was lost in a bag full of other letters – CIC: misplacing the RTI application or losing sight of it in the midst of other bagful of letters cannot be a ground for denying any information - Since the PIO never received the RTI application penalty cannot be imposed on him - SSC to devise a foolproof procedure in future so that this is not repeated
ORDER
1. In our order dated 15 July 2013, we had directed the CPIO concerned to appear before us and show cause why we should not impose penalty on him for not responding to the Appellant in time. The CPIO concerned (Ashok Kumar Vijay) appeared today and submitted that he had never received the RTI application and, therefore, he could not have responded to it.
2. The fact that the CPIO had never received the RTI application had been brought before us on the last date of hearing. It had been stated that the application was lost in a bag full of other letters and did not surface at all. This is a very unfortunate situation. The SSC needs to evolve systems for separating the RTI applications from thousands of other communications it receives everyday. Misplacing the RTI application or losing sight of it in the midst of other bagful of letters cannot be a ground for denying any information. As far as the present case is concerned, we understand that, in the meanwhile, the CPIO has provided both the information and the compensation to the Appellant as directed by us. Since the CPIO had never received the RTI application for whatever reasons, we cannot blame him. Therefore, we do not intend to impose any penalty on him but expect him to bring this to the notice of the authorities in the SSC to devise a foolproof procedure in future so that this is not repeated.
(Satyananda Mishra)
Chief Information Commissioner
Citation: Shri Sunil Sajwan v. Staff Selection Commission in File No. CIC/SM/C/2013/000036