Published: Tuesday, Dec 21, 2010, 2:56 IST
By Harish Gupta | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_central-information-commission-fines-indian-olympic-association-for-delaying-info_1484049
The central information commission (CIC) has slapped a penalty of Rs52,000 on Indian Olympic Association (IOA) for deliberately delaying information by as many as 100 days to an RTI applicant.
Commonwealth Games organising committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi, who is accused of involvement in the Rs70,000-crore Games scam, is president of IOA.
CIC rejected the IOA plea that the delay was inadvertent. The commission said the delay violated the manifest provisions of RTI Act.
Activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal filed an RTI plea on July 12, 2010, to know how much money IOA spent on Kalmadi and other office-bearers’ foreign and domestic tours and hotel stays in the past five years and related issues.
He filed another application on August 3, 2010, seeking information on agreements signed with and contracts given to GL Meroform, Nussli (a Swiss firm), ESG Arena, PICO-Deepali and other companies.
He also wanted to know if the material supplied by the above firms was checked for quality.
After IOA officer-bearers delayed the information by 80 days to 120 days (the specified period is 30 days), Agrawal moved CIC.
Central information commissioner ML Sharma said he carefully went through the explanation given by IOA office-bearers and felt that they violated manifest provisions of RTI Act.
He said the applicant did not insist on exemplary compensation but wanted a “token” punishment for the guilty. CIC decided to impose a fine of Rs2,000 on Kalmadi and another of Rs50,000 for inordinate delay in supply of information.
IOA has to deposit the Rs50,000 with CIC and pay Agrawal Rs2,000 in four weeks from December 16.
