RTI query transfer: CMO says north corpn pay compensation

The Delhi Chief Minister's Office has told the Central Information Commission that the north corporation should pay compensation to an RTI applicant whose query on pension for handicapped persons it had transferred to the civic body.
Extending a reprieve, the CIC agreed that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's office should have been heard before initiating penalty proceedings and asked it to explain why the plea of a person seeking to know the status of a handicapped person's pension was transferred to the civic body.
Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu, who had passed scathing remarks on the working of RTI in the CMO, said, "It is stated in many judicial pronouncements that the Commission has no power of review.

"However, the Commission is convinced that the public authority has a right to notice before imposition of compensation and also before initiating penalty proceedings under section 20 of the RTI Act."
The CMO told the Commissioner that it had not received either a copy of the second appeal, hearing notice from CIC or show-cause notice before directions were issued asking it to pay a compensation of Rs 1 lakh.
"The Public Information Officer (PIO) submitted that the North Delhi Municipal Corporation is directly concerned with the subject and hence the public authority should be made liable to compensate the loss of appellant and not the CMO," Acharyulu noted.

CIC had passed scathing remarks on the working of the CMO last month while deciding the case of one Charanjeet Singh Bhatia, who had sought information about non-payment of his wife's handicap pension for 10 months between July, 2014, and April, 2015.
The Commission had said it finds it "pathetic that such an high office like CMO evolves an unhealthy practice of forwarding RTI applications for an unlimited period, thereby causing the denial of information to the appellant regarding the non-payment of pension to his eligible handicapped wife."
Acharyulu had also directed the CMO to pay compensation of Rs 1 lakh to Bhatia and initiate action against all PIOs who "unnecessarily" transferred the application to others.