An undersecretary in the Revenue department Umadevi broke down, during a hearing, before the Information Commissioner Shekhar Sajjanar on Friday when the latter insisted her to produce file notings.
Umadevi had appeared before Sajjanar in connection with an RTI application filed by Kalidas Reddy. The applicant had sought information on the action taken by the government to protect government land.
During the hearing, the Information Commissioner asked her to produce the file notings, which she was reluctant to provide. Upon insistence by the Commissioner, who sought to know the difficulty in providing the file notings, she broke down saying, “I am neither getting any cooperation from my higher-ups nor from my juniors.”
Sajjanar suggested her to exercise Section 5 (4) of the RTI Act which allows the public information officer to seek the assistance of any other officer if he or she considered it necessary for the proper discharge of his or her duty.
After some hesitation, Umadevi provided the information.The document provided by her was the draft rule, prepared to protect ponds, grazing land, threshing floor, maidan (field) for playing and holding carnivals and festivals, water bodies, passages, cremation grounds or graveyards etc as mandated by the Supreme Court. The draft rule, however, has not received State government’s nod, so far.
The Karnataka Information Commission (KIC) has earlier fined the undersecretary Rs 5,000 for not furnishing information on what the State government has done to protect public land in accordance with a direction by the Supreme Court.