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HC pulls up urban development dept for saying, 'sorry files are missing'

Calls for police probe to trace files in RTI case in six months

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A curious case of missing files has come to haunt some officials of the Urban Development Department (UDD). The Bombay High Court on Friday ordered the UDD deputy secretary to file an FIR against his own officials for what amounts to taking shelter under missing files to hide facts and protect themselves.

When Vivek Kulkarni filed an RTI query in 2008 on the hows and whys of some land allotment in Sangli, the UDD told him: "Sorry, the files are missing."

He heard the same reply from the department many times over, forcing the HC to observe that it is a classic example of how government officers protect fellow officers and frustrate the basic intention behind the Right to Information Act.

Kulkarni, a member of the public trust Swatantraya Veer Sawarkar Pratishthan, had specifically sought information about a Government Resolution dated August 21, 1996, under which various plots in and around Sangli were released.

Later, Kulkarni challenged the UDD reply before the appellant authority, deputy secretary S K Salimath. Salimath directed the information officer to search for the files concerned and furnish details within 15 days.

When the search didn't yield any result, Salimath also gave Kulkarni much the same reply, "Sorry, the files are missing". Not just that, Salimath also told Kulkarni that the Public Information Officer does not have any intention to hide any information.

This reply took Kulkarni to the State Information Commissioner. The Commission, in an order on August 2011, directed the UDD Secretary to lodge an FIR and form a special team to trace the file. Even this order was not complied with, and Kulkarni moved the HC.

When the court called the officials concerned – joint secretary Suresh Kakani and deputy secretary S K Salimath – they also gave the same reply, "Sorry, the files are missing," in their own way. "It is very difficult for the department to fix the responsibility on any member of the staff for misplacing the documents in question," they said in an affidavit.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice A S Gadkari came down heavily on the officers: "It appears that the said officers have given a clean chit to all concerned without fixing liability on anybody. It clearly appears to us that while exhibiting overenthusiasm, Mr Salimath has taken to himself the task of the investigator and the fact-finding authority. He has exceeded his jurisdiction and has tried to over-reach the order passed by the State Information Commission."

The bench has now directed the Sangli police to appoint an officer not below the rank of Deputy Commissioner to investigate the case and complete it in six months.


 

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