Status: cleared
Chennai:
The State Information Commission denied information requested in a 2021 Right to Information (RTI) application and rejected the subsequent appeal in December 2024. The order, uploaded on the commission’s website three months later, questioned the petitioner’s locus standi, motive, and qualifications.
Kasimayan, a city-based activist, filed an RTI application in 2021 seeking information regarding 23 villages in the Pennagaram panchayat union, Krishnagiri district. He requested details of village heads, gram panchayat secretaries, families (including those from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities), expenditures for park maintenance in the village panchayats, the number of houses built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) scheme, details of officers who conducted the AWAS+ survey, and copies of audit reports for the villages from 2018 to 2021.
Initially, the Public Information Officer (PIO) denied the information, citing the volume of data requested. Kasimayan then filed a first appeal. The appellate authority directed the PIO to provide the information, but Kasimayan received no response. Subsequently, he filed a second appeal before the commission, which was heard by Information Commissioner R Priyakumar in December. The PIO, a Block Development Officer, appeared and stated that he had only recently assumed the position and was unfamiliar with the petition. However, Kasimayan argued for the release of the information and requested action against the previous PIO for non-compliance with the appellate authority’s directive.
In the order uploaded this month, R Priyakumar accused Kasimayan of wasting government staff time by filing the RTI request. He suggested alternative sources for the information, such as government websites. However, the commissioner did not confirm whether the requested information was actually available on those websites, nor did he consider the petitioner’s potential access or knowledge of those resources.
Additionally, he questioned Kasimayan’s claim to be a “legal activist,” arguing that he should have attended gram sabha meetings in Pennagaram to obtain first hand information on resolutions passed, rather than filing an RTI application from Chennai.
In the concluding note, the commission rejected the appeal stating the petition was filed to waste the precious time of govt officers and that the information (denial) initially provided by the PIO was sufficient. MSID:: 119121857 413 |