SRA information officer penalised

Chief Information Commissioner Suresh Joshi has fined RR Tripathi, assistant public information officer of the Slum Redevelopment Authority (SRA), for his lack of initiative in parting with information sought by a former police commissioner.

Julio Rebeiro had filed a right to information application on July 4, 2007, seeking copies of the file relating to an under-construction SRA project at Juhu undertaken by Kunal Developers.

When he did not receive the information even after 30 days, Rebeiro lodged a complaint with the state information commission.

In 2005 the Economic Offences Wing had registered a case against Kunal Developers along with alleged beneficiaries from Bollywood and two city-based private security firms who had been allotted free 225 sq ft tenements under the Juhu SRA project.

In his order last week, Joshi asked Debashish Chakravorthy, SRA chief executive officer, to recover a fine of Rs1,000 from Tripathi’s.

He has been asked to deposit the amount under the proper head prescribed by the government. Joshi also asked Chakravorthy to submit a compliance report by October 15.

Tripathi said that the delay was due to the time taken to photocopy the 300 pages of documents and approved plans sought by the applicant. Apologising for the delay, Tripathi said the documents had been kept ready but not issued as investigations were in progress in the EOW case.