M. Sridhar Acharyulu DECISION
M. Sridhar Acharyulu, Information Commissioner
1. The appellant is present. The public authority is represented by Mr. V.K. Suman, APIO, Finance Deptt, Mr. Manoj Kumar, Supdt, Dte of Local Bodies and Ms. Indu, APIO and Mr. Manoj Sahu, PIO, Planning Department. The PIO from the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, to whom the hearing notice has gone, is not present.
Facts:
2. Appellant by his RTI application had sought information regarding non-payment of his wife's handicap pension for 10 months (July 2014 to April 2015). Having received no information, appellant filed First Appeal. PIO, thereafter, replied on 17.08.15, wherein he stated that the release of old age pension is being decided by community services department. Being unsatisfied, appellant approached Commission.
Decision:
3. Both the parties made their submissions. The appellant is a senior citizen who has brought a very serious issue of governance to the notice of the Commission and the public in general. His wife got only Rs. 3000/- [@ Rs. 1000/- pm] for the months of April-June, 2014, the cheque of which was delivered in the month of February, 2015, i.e. after 8 months. Thereafter nothing was received. He wrote several letters to the Chief Minister of Delhi about the lack of budgetary allocations, because of which his wife was not getting handicapped pension. The issue is in fact, multiple transfers of the RTI application from CM office to a number of PIOs, spending huge amount of money on the correspondence and yielding nothing. The CMO informed the appellant that his RTI application was transferred to 4 PIOs of different departments, namely, Directorate of Local Bodies, Dept. of Planning, Dept of Finance and the Delhi Municipal Corporation-North (MCDN) and directed him to approach the concerned departments. He referred to one news clipping of HT in which the issue of non-payment of pension due to fund crunch was highlighted.
4. The appellant's main question was against the transfer of his RTI application among several PIOs without any rhyme or reason. His application was transferred to 29 public authorities. Among those authorities, some of them transferred the application to each other. For instance, the PIO/Local Bodies transferred to Dept of Social Welfare and two municipal corporations of Delhi. The appellant sought to know from the Commission whether there is no limit on transferring RTI applications within the RTI Act. If not, is it not a major defect in the Act. Can Govt. spend public money on such purposeless transfers? When the question was non-payment of pension, it is supposed to be decided by the office of the CM, and it cannot simply shirk its responsibility by transferring the RTI application to the MCD. The appellant referred to a news item dated 22-8-2015 wherein it was reported that the MCD told the High Court that it was asking the Government of Delhi to merge its old age pension scheme with the schemes of social welfare department. The MCD has a deficit of Rs. 700 crores during 2015-16. A public interest litigation (PIL) filed by an NGO claimed that the municipal bodies have stopped paying pension under the social welfare schemes like old age pension/widow pension/disabled pension, etc. Though 73,000 persons were eligible to receive the benefit under the old age pension scheme, the SDMC was paying pension only to 63,914 persons till 30-9-2014. EDMC also stated in the Court that they were ready to continue the pension scheme covering 30,600 disabled/widow/old aged persons, subject to availability of funds. EDMC told the court that 107.52 crores of pension amount could not paid to the pensioners for 2 years due to lack of funds. The Delhi High Court has received a PIL filed by the BJP leaders seeking direction to the Government for funds allocation to the 3 municipal corporations. In the PIL filed by the Social Justice, an NGO, it was claimed that 1.5 lakh aged persons were not paid pension. The appellant has shown another press report dated 17-1-2016, wherein it was reported that the Civic body wants government to take over pension scheme partially. These media clippings reveal that the civic bodies are considering to do away with the disbursement of funds to the........