Penalty of Rs. 25,000 imposed on PIO for blocking the information under RTI
18 Feb, 2014An application was filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking the details of the expenditure accrued by gram, taluk and zilla panchayats for the Bidar Utsav held in 2012 from April 7 to April 9. The application also sought to get information regarding the Deputy Commissioner’s meetings on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
However, as the public information officer, who is also the project officer and in-charge Additional Deputy Commissioner, didn’t provide the requested information to the applicant even after around 2 years, the applicant approached the State Information Commission (SIC), Karnataka.
Considering the huge delay to be intentional on part of the PIO, the SIC has now imposed a penalty of Rs. 25,000 on him. The SIC has directed the deputy commissioner to deduct Rs. 5,000 each month from the PIO’s salary from February, 2014 to June, 2014. Apart from this, the Karnataka state information commission has also ordered the PIO to pay Rs. 2,000 to the applicant as compensation.