Show cause notice to former PIO of Kochi Corporation
26 Nov, 2013The Chief Information Commissioner of Kerala Siby Mathews has issued a notice against the former PIO of Kochi Corporation for willful delay in reply to a query under RTI Act. R. Sreekumar, the officer in question is now posted as the executive engineer of central zone of the Kochi Corporation.
Bobby Kavalam, a resident of Pundit Karuppan Road in Thevara, applied for details of the authority permitting installation of cellular phone towers along with the procedure adopted while giving such permissions on April 10, 2012. The reply provided to him by R Sreekumar on May 8, 2012 said that since no file pertaining to the same was found, hence the application cannot be considered, even the first appellate authority upheld the reply given by the PIO and even his application didn’t come under the RTI Act.
In response to the appeal by Bobby Kavalam, the CIC found the query to be well within the ambit of RTI Act, hence forth along with the notice sent to the former PIO, the SIC also directed the present PIO to provide all the information within seven days. It is noteworthy to be mentioned here that the commission can impose a fine of Rs 25,000/- (maximum amount) along with directing for initiation of departmental proceedings for disciplinary action.