Home Secretary asked to warn officer on delay

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Home Secretary asked to warn officer on delay
As reported in the Hindu

New Delhi (PTI): The Central Information Commission has asked Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta to issue a warning to a ministry official for a delay in responding to an RTI application.

"It is recommended to Madhukar Gupta, secretary, MHA, that he issue a warning under the Civil Service Conduct rule to P K Kaul to ensure that his disposal of RTI applications in future adheres to the requirement of the Act," Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah said.

The Commission passed its direction after it was pointed out that Kaul had not replied to a RTI plea filed by Swaran Kaur on the issue of freedom fighters' pension.

Kaul cannot escape the responsibility for servicing this application as he became aware of it on the day he took charge, Habibullah said, dismissing his plea that the time limit of the application had lapsed before it reached him.

Taking a serious view of the delay in processing the RTI application, the CIC said that the liability of Kaul arose from his inability to enforce his own orders which were to be complied with by section officer D K Saxena.
During the hearing, Saxena wrote a letter to the CIC regretting the "inadvertent" delay in responding to Kaur's RTI plea. He also sought leniency from the Commission, submitting that he has now retired from service.

"It is not our practice to consider superannuation as a reasonable cause not to impose penalties on those who have retired from service," the Commission said.

Noting that Kaul's liability in financial terms was obscure, the Commission let him off with the direction to the Home Secretary to issue a warning to the officer to ensure that processing of RTI pleas was done in compliance with the Act.

The Hindu News Update Service