‘Ill-treated’ RTI applicant to file writ petition against SIC

JAGTIAL: Secretary of Council for Citizens Rights (CCR) Tummanapelly Jaya Prakash has alleged that in violation of the provisions under Right to Information Act, the State Information Commission (SIC) behaved in a negligent manner when a disabled applicant sought information.

Prakash, a resident of Ailapur village in Kuratla mandal sought details of land records in the tahsildar’s office Korutla in September, 2018 under Section 6(1) of Right to Information Act.

When he did not get information from the tahsildar’s office as per first appellate under Section 19(1) of the RTI Act, he approached the Sub-collector of Metpally in October, 2018.  Even that was a futile exercise. Then as a second appellate under Section 19 (3) he applied at the State Information Commission office.
Prakash said that he along with the concerned tahsildar and sub-collector received notices to be at the State information commission office by 11.30 am on January 22.

“Accordingly, I reached Hyderabad a day early and went to the office in time,” he added. The staff at the Commission was rude and said that Commissioner Gugulothu Shankar Naik was not available and asked him to come when notices will be sent again.

He rued that being a disabled person, he faced a lot of problems and spent money to come to Hyderabad from Jagtial. He said that on the behalf of the state CCR committee, legal notices will be sent to the state information commission against the negligent behaviour of the concerned officials and if needed they will also file a writ petition in the High Court.