The first appellate authority of Jalandhar Improvement Trust demanded Rs 20,000 from an RTI applicant,nine months after he had filed his application,that too for information already provided by the Public Information Officer. In March last year,a Jalandhar resident,Rajesh Kumar Arora,sought information under the RTI Act from the Improvement Trust office of the city about files prepared for allotment of plots. The files had gone missing. After waiting for information for nine months,he filed a complaint with the appellate authority. The PIO told the authority in an affidavit in August last,saying that he had directed Sudershan Sharma and Mohinder Singh Mighlani,both superintendents of the sale section,to provide the requisite information. Finally,the PIO gave the information to Arora on January 9,2009. Four days later,on January 13,2009,the first appellate authority demanded Rs 20,000 from Arora for the same information,not taking into consideration the fact that the PIO had provided the information. It asked Arora to submit Rs 20,000 for the information that runs into 10,000 pages. Arora then approached the State Information Commission,which asked the first appellate authority Executive Officer R L Bhagat to give the rationale for demanding fee nine months after the information was sought,and especially when the PIO had already sent the response. The SIC also asked the PIO to explain why penalty should not be imposed on him for delay. However,Bhagat could not justify his demand for Rs 20,000. Lt Gen Grover found his response insufficient and non-convincing. Information that was sought pertained to details of misplaced files. How could this information run into 10,000 pages when the files were non-existent? State Information Commissioner Lt Gen PK Grover (retd) said in the order. It has directed that the case be placed before Principal Secretary D S Bains. Saying that the principal secretary may initiate action if deemed necessary,the SIC directed the first appellate authority to pay Rs 2,000 to the complainant. Grover observed that as the PIO was dependant on the custodians of information,he could not be penalised. And in this case,both the superintendents have retired, the SIC observed.
