Information Commissioner slaps fine under RTI Act 2005 to Education Ministry-The Public Information Officer (PIO) of Ministry of Education, Maharashtra has been slapped with Rs.25000/- fine by the State Information Commissioner (SIC) Mr.Ajit Kumar Jain for gross negligence in implementing the provisions of The Right To Information Act, 2005.
The education activist from Mumbai Mr.Prasad Tulaskar who had filed the RTI application to the Minister of Education Mr.Vinod Tawde’s office & had sought the information about the status of the complaint filed by him against the Dy.Education Officer of BMC, Mr.Raju Tadvi who had given unsatisfactory & negligent replies to take action against the Sane Guruji School, Dadar.
As per the information given by Mr.Prasad Tulaskar, in spite of Dy.Education Officer of BMC, Mr.Raju Tadvi, was brought to the notice that Sane Guruji School, Dadar has not made the necessary compliance of The Right of Children To Free And Compulsory Education Act 2009 like submission of yearly audited statements, Form I & Form II etc. till the year 2017 for which the school management is liable to be fined for Rs.1,00,000/- firstly and later Rs.10,000/- per day, Mr.Tadvi willfully neglected to perform his duty & misguided him further with false information.
Accordingly the complaint was filed by Mr.Tulaskar to the office of Education Minister Mr.Vinod Tawde against Mr.Raju Tadvi Dty.Education Officer, BMC. As the ministry also showed the indifference to his complaint, subsequently Mr.Tulaskar filed an RTI application.
However Mr.Tulaskar’s plight did not end here. Even after the expiration of 30 days’ prescribed time limit to provide the information or to give satisfactory reason for rejecting the RTI application, Mr.Tulaskar did not receive any information or correspondence for reason to reject his application from Public Information Officer (PIO) Mr.Anand Bhondave who also holds post of Under Secretary in the education ministry of Maharashtra.
The same indifferent approach was further adopted by the education minister’s own department when Mr.Prasad Tulaskar filed the first appeal before the First Appellate Authority. Shockingly no hearing or even no correspondence was made in pursuant to first appeal filed by him. Accordingly Mr.Tulaskar filed the second appeal under the Right To Information Act 2005 before the State Information Commissioner.
The State Information Commissioner came heavily on the Public Information Officer (PIO) Mr.Anand Bhondve who took the ground of misplacing the RTI application filed by Mr.Tulaskar & finding the same later.The State Information Commissioner finding no substance in the defense taken by the Public Information Officer, Mr.Anand Bhondve termed misplacing of the RTI application as ‘Very serious fact for the good governance’ & slapped him with Rs.25000/- which as mentioned in the order attached below shall be recovered in the 5 installments from Mr.Anand Bhonve’s salary.
Information Commissioner slaps fine under RTI Act 2005 to Education Ministry-
Continued…
This is good example for many people who file RTI Applications but never pursue it up to the stages of second appeal after the information officers show indifference at initial stages. If people start showing persistency as shown by Mr.Prasad Tulaskar, the fear of action in the minds of errant officer for their negligence would surely help achieve the goal of good governance for common people of India.
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