Penalty of Rs 25,000 imposed on the PIO of Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation
29 Sep, 2013The State Information Commission (SIC) of Karnataka has imposed a penalty of Rs. 25,000 on Bangalore Metro Railway Corporation (BMRC) for non-responding to a query under RTI and non-appearance before the SIC for hearing the same.
RTI activist T Narasimha Murthy raised a query regarding the distance between Vidhan Soudha and the Ambedkar statue on November 28, 2011 and the appeal was filed before the SIC in 2012. The statue was supposed to be shifted but faced stiff resistance from certain quarters.
The BMRC was neither able to answer the query nor was able to represent itself before the commission, which resulted in the imposition of penalty. The amount shall be deducted from the salary of the former public information officer (PIO) UA Vasanth Rao at the rate of Rs 5,000 per month starting from October 2013 for five months.