In an unprecedented order, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Railways to recover the cost borne by its staff on travelling to attend RTI hearings from an applicant's salary. The applicant had sought details of his transfer order.
``The DRM, Western Railways, Bhavnagar (Gujarat), is directed to consider recovery of the expenditure incurred on the officials for attending hearing on January 15, 2010 from the salary of the appellant, who is held responsible for misusing the provisions of the RTI Act by filing frivolous petitions before the Commission even though there are no refusal of information to him," CIC M M Ansari said.
There are no provisions in the RTI Act for punishing or slapping penal provisions on an information-seeker and this is the first time that an applicant has been asked to shell out costs incurred by the government for what the CIC has ruled as ``frivolous''.
Source: Times Of India CIC asks Rlys to recover travel costs from RTI applicant
