Officials get penalty notice via video conferencing

This is the first case of its kind, the CIC issues penalty notices Director and Dep Commission of the Andaman district, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Jan 8, 2007, 20:29:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Two officials of the distant Andaman and Nicobar Islands received a penalty notice under Right to Information Act --- through video-conferencing.

Apparently a first case of its kind, the Central Information Commission issued penalty notices to the Director, Education and the Deputy Commission of the Andaman district for not providing information to the RTI applicant M Lingamayya.

He had sought information on five administrative matters from the Andaman and Nicobar Island administration but got reply regarding only two. The Public Information Officer told CIC that the notice to seek information from the Education Department and Deputy Commissioner was sent on February 2006 but no reply was received. Even after that several reminders were send but there was no response from the respective departments.

On January 3, through video conferencing at National Informatics Centre at Lodhi Road, Information Commissioner OP Kejriwal held the hearing. Officials of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lingamayya were, on the other side, at Port Blair participating in the hearing.

Unlike states, which have their own State Information Commissioners, the Union Territories (UTs), are under the Central Information Commission and asking the appellant and the officials to come to Delhi may prove to be a cumbersome process.

During the hearing, Kejriwal found that the appellant was repeatedly complaining that the Andaman administration was not responsive towards RTI. However, the PIO insisted that the government has appointed PIOs in different departments. But, Kejriwal did not appeared to be convinced and instantly announced that he would visit the Union Territory himself to take stock of the situation.

Kejirwal's order has, however, created history of sorts by issuing a penalty notice to the two officials through video-conferencing.

Email Chetan Chauhan: chetan @hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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