Info panel slaps Rs 25,000 penalty on TNEB official

Published Date: 11-July-2009

G Saravanan

Chennai, July 10: IN a landmark order, the Tamil Nadu Information Commissioner slapped a penalty of Rs 25,000 on the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board’s Public Information Officer (PIO) for deliberately avoiding to furnish details sought by an RTI applicant.

The commission, besides directing the TNEB chairman to recover the penalty amount from the delinquent officer and report the fact to the commission within 15 days, asked the chairman to take severe departmental action against him for violating the RTI Act deliberately and report the details of action taken within 30 days.

In a detailed two-page order, the commission also directed the TNEB chairman to supply the information to the applicant at his residence within 10 days and asked to pay Rs 500 as compensation for the intransigent nonsupply of information by the department. “It’s indeed a landmark order and my sustained effort using the RTI tool brought me the needed relief,” a jubilant R Natarajan, R A Purambased research scholar, told Express.

The petitioner moved an application with TNEB seeking details about irregularities involved in billing electricity consumption to a firm located in North Chennai. Apparently irked over the excess billing, Natarajan moved his first application under RTI in 2007 and asked seven questions about the irregularities in billing system. As his two such applications went unanswered, he was forced to move another one with the RTI commission seeking time-bound direction against TNEB’s attitude.

Acting on his appeal, commission issued a time-bound direction to the TNEB PIO to supply the information sought by Natarajan by March 3, 2009. It also directed the official to appear before the commission if the petitioner was not supplied with the details in the stipulated time. But, TNEB’s official gave scant regard to the commission’s direction and he neither gave a reply nor appeared before the commission to explain the delay. Consequent to the TNEB officials’ lax attitude, Natarajan filed a complaint and the commission summoned the official to present himself before them on June 17.

During the enquiry, the PIO could not explain as to why he had not appeared before the commission as directed and explain why the information was not given.It was also found that the official deliberately avoided giving information by saying that the billing card went untraceable, hence no reply can be made to application. The commission concluded that an open misdemeanour committed by the officials is being sought to be hidden by the refusal to supply information.