New Delhi:
The Central Info Fee has dismissed 141 petitions filed by an RTI applicant towards the Delhi Lt Governor’s workplace, calling it a misuse of the transparency legislation to inundate the workplace with pleas searching for data unrelated to it.
Warning the applicant, Info Commissioner YK Sinha mentioned in case such excessive variety of “frivolous, vexatious and wasteful” litigation is obtained by the Fee, it is going to be compelled to dismiss such purposes.
The applicant, Dinesh, had filed plenty of pleas underneath the Proper to Info (RTI) with the Lt Governor’s workplace searching for particulars of properties, unlawful constructions, allotment of homes amongst different issues by means of separate petitions.
Claiming that he had not obtained any data in response, he approached the CIC searching for instructions to the LG workplace for issuance of the knowledge sought by him.
The LG’s workplace represented by famous RTI activist Subhash Agrawal mentioned the purposes have been replied to or transferred to the involved authorities after intimating the applicant.
“It’s famous that the appellant has persistently said that he has not obtained any data from the PIO or the FAA and but he incessantly saved submitting all of the RTI purposes within the LG”s workplace. Response/s obtained from the Respondent, nonetheless reveals a unique story,” Mr Sinha mentioned.
Dismissing all 141 petitions in 5 separate orders, Mr Sinha famous that although the queries raised by the appellant are claimed to be within the bigger public curiosity, his modus operandi is to file a lot of pleas that are “irrelevant” and “unrelated”.
“Within the present atmosphere with the outbreak of the pandemic, COVID-19, and with the resultant lockdown the traditional functioning of all organisations has been severely impacted. For the Fee, this solely provides to the already large backlog of circumstances,” Mr Sinha mentioned.
He mentioned in such circumstances, there’s a urgent have to determine circumstances comparable to those underneath reference for cumulative disposal with a purpose to facilitate expeditious adjudication of circumstances of real data seekers.
Being attentive to a earlier CIC order associated to the Delhi Chief Minister’s workplace the place 19 purposes filed by the identical individual, Dinesh, have been dismissed on related grounds, Mr Sinha famous that the appellant has again and again adopted the identical modus operandi of multiplying his queries and searching for voluminous data within the type of manifold litigation.
“The appellant has thus demonstrated that he’s not solely a perpetual litigant however relentless in his observe of submerging the traditional functioning of the Respondent authority underneath a deluge of repetitive and irrelevant paperwork, in complete defiance of the Fee’s instructions and observations. This can be a gross abuse of the RTI Act and contemplating the legislation of the land, as mentioned above, such a observe can’t be allowed by the Fee,” he mentioned.
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