New Delhi: Withholding dues of a taxi owner
for two years proved costly for the two officials of National
Commission of Minorities as the CIC directed the panel to
investigate the matter and pay Rs 50,000 as compensation, to
be recovered from salaries of the erring officials.
The two officials of the Commission, S K Swami and
Harcharan Singh Josh, had allegedly used the taxi services of
one Rajeev Gupta during the period of December 2007 and
December 2008, for which the bill ran well over Rs one lakh.
But Gupta did not receive the due amount.
Gupta reached the Central Information Commission after
his RTI application, seeking the status of payment process and
reasons for not making payment, did not get satisfactory
reply.
Information Commissioner M M Ansari found that Gupta has
"unnecessarily been harassed" and awarded Rs 50,000 as
compensation to be paid by the minority panel before March 11
following which interest of 10 per cent would be levied. He
also ordered investigations in the matter.
In his order the Commissioner said, "For its failure to
ensure timely payment of bills as well as lack of proper
response to the RTI application without any justifiable
reasons, the respondent NCM has to compensate the appellant,
for all kinds of detriments suffered by him."
"The Secretary would, however, be free to recover this
amount from the concerned official(s), who have made use of
the taxi services," he said.
PTI
