Punitive action against Wardha ex-RDC

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Punitive action against Wardha ex-RDC
as reported in Times of India, 13 Aug 2008, TNN

WARDHA: State Information Commissioner Vilas Patil is learnt to have ordered disciplinary action against the then Resident Deputy Collector of Wardha (RDC), Narendra Lonkar, in connection with furnishing 'false' information under the Right To Information Act, 2005. However, the nature of the penalty could not be confirmed.

Patil was moved by Tarachand Chowbey, who was allegedly furnished false information in reply to his RTI query about the status of his complaint raised during a number of Lokshahi Diwas programmes. Chowbey had raised the issue of Arya Samaj Temple in his complaints, which reportedly went unheeded. Fed up, Chowbey then sought information under the RTI Act about the number of the complaints made, solved and pending, out of the ones that were raised on each Lokshahi Diwas between October 1, 2005 and October 5, 2006. Chowbey got the reply on December 28, 2006 from the RTI authority at the district collector's office, which informed him that 29 out of 31 cases had been solved while two were in process. To Chowbey's shock, his 'pending' case was also mentioned under the 29 solved cases.

Thereafter, he approached the State Information Commissioner, seeking action against the officials concerned for furnishing false information under the RTI Act. Following this, Patil summoned Chowbey and the present Wardha District Collector Anup Yadav and RDC Vinay Moon on Tuesday at Ravi Bhavan in Nagpur for a hearing.

After hearing both the parties, Patil ordered action against Lonkar, who was transferred to Chandrapur as land acquisition officer some 15 days ago, sources said. Chowbey could not be contacted. Both Yadav and Moon confirmed the disciplinary action against Lonkar but could not tell the exact nature of the punishment as they hadn't received the official order.

Punitive action against Wardha ex-RDC-Nagpur-Cities-The Times of India