The status of investigation against a General Manager and issues related thereto was sought - CIC: The then PIO who failed to furnish any reply to the appellant in due time has been relived from the service; Furnish the broad outcome of investigation
27 Jan, 2022O R D E R
1. The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) Indian Drugs & Pharmaceuticals, Gurgaon, Haryana. The appellant seeking information is as under:
i) The present status of the investigation I examination in the matter may kindly be intimated along with copy of all orders / remarks by the concerned authorities of IDPL.
ii) Copy of communication if any to Deptt. of Pharmaceuticals from IDPL may kindly be made available.
iii) Copy of all communication to Sri Tarakant Pradhan, General Incharg", lncharge, ODCL in this subject may kindly be made available.
2. Dissatisfied due to non–receipt of any reply from CPIO, the appellant has file first appeal dated 17-03-2020 and requested that the information should be provided to him. The order of the FAA, if any, is not on record with the Commission. He has filed a second appeal before the Commission on the ground that information sought has not been provided to him and requested to direct the respondent to provide complete and correct information.
Hearing:
3. The appellant attended the hearing through video-call. The respondent, Shri Piyush Mathur, Legal Executive/ CPIO attended the hearing through audio-call.
4. The respondent submitted their written submissions and the same has been taken on record.
5. The appellant submitted that no reply has been furnished to him by the respondent on his RTI application dated 29.01.2020 even after 45 days from the filing. The FAA also failed to furnish any reply to the appellant and hence pleaded that appropriate action be taken against them.
6. The respondent submitted that the then CPIO has been relived from the service on 31.05.2020. He further submitted that after inspecting the available records they have found that the RTI application has not been entered in the office register and its reply by the then CPIO has also not been furnished to the appellant. Further due to COVID- 19 pandemic lockdown and non- functioning of the office, the copy of the first appeal was not traceable and hence requested additional time to dispose of the present RTI application.
Decision:
7. The Commission, after hearing the submissions of both the parties and after perusal of records, observes that the appellant has sought the present status of investigation against one Mr. Tarakant Pradhan, General Manager Incharge, ODCL and issues related thereto. The Commission further observes that the then CPIO Mr. Sachin Gautam failed to furnish any reply to the appellant in due time. However, the then CPIO has also been relived from the service as informed the present CPIO. In the aforementioned circumstances, the Commission thus directs the respondent to furnish action taken/ broad outcome of investigation to the appellant if the same has been completed without divulging with the internal correspondence or the details of the investigation, etc., or to furnish the present status of his complaint if the investigation is still under process, within a period of 30 days from the date of receipt of this order under the intimation to this Commission.
8. No further intervention of the Commission is required in the matter.
9. With the above observations, the appeal is disposed of.
10. Copy of the decision be provided free of cost to the parties.
Neeraj Kumar Gupta
Information Commissioner
Citation: Mr. Dinesh Kumar Patra v. Indian Drugs & Pharmaceuticals (IDPL) in Second Appeal No. CIC/IDPCL/A/2020/116675, Date: 24-12-2021