Central Information Commission
Roop Singh vs Ministry Of Civil Aviation on 26 November, 2018
के ीय सूचना आयोग
Central Information Commission
बाबा गंगनाथ माग
, मुिनरका
Baba Gangnath Marg, Munirka
नई द
ली, New Delhi - 110067
ि तीय अपील सं या / Second Appeal No. CIC/MOCAV/A/2017/149295
Roop Singh
....अपीलकता
/Appellant
VERSUS
बनाम
Mrs. Kalpana Rao
Executive Director-Finance/Company
Secretary, Air India Ltd., 3rd Floor,
Finance Building, Old Airport, Kalina,
Santa Cruz (East), Mumbai - 400029.
&
Mr. Kirti Rao,
Executive Director-Finance/Company
Secretary, Air India Ltd., 2nd Floor,
Finance Building, Old Airport, Kalina,
Santa Cruz (East), Mumbai - 400029. ... ितवादीगण /Respondents
Dates
RTI application : 02.02.2017
CPIO reply : 09.02.2017
First Appeal : 29.03.2017
FAA Order : Not on record
Second Appeal : 16.07.2017
Date of hearing : 13.09.2018, 01.11.2018
Facts:
The appellant vide RTI application dated 02.02.2017 sought information on five points as under:
1. Whether the appellant is entitled to difference of arrears of gratuity and leave encashment due to increase in his basic pay as a result of wage revision w.e.f 01.01.1997.Page 1 of 10
2. Details of the gratuity and leave encashment difference due to the appellant.
3. Date on which the amounts will be paid to him.
4. Other related information.
The CPIO replied on 09.02.2017. The appellant was not satisfied with the reply of the CPIO and filed first appeal on 29.03.2017. The First Appellate Authority (FAA)'s order is not on record. Aggrieved with the non-supply of the desired information from the respondent authority, the appellant filed second appeal under the provision of Section 19 of the RTI Act before the Central Information Commission on 16.07.2017.
Grounds for Second Appeal The CPIO did not provide the desired information.
Order
Appellant : Present
Respondent : Shri Chandra Kishore Shukla,
Under Secretary cum CPIO,
M/o Civil Aviation
Shri R.K. Sikka,
Deputy General Manager cum PIO,
Air India.
During the hearing, the respondent CPIO, M/o Civil Aviation submitted that they had transferred the RTI application dated 02.02.2017 u/s 6(3) of the RTI Act on 09.02.2017 and provided the requisite reply to the appellant on point no. 4 of the stated RTI application .
The respondent CPIO, Air India handed over a written submission during the hearing and stated that they had provided the requisite reply on point nos. 1,2,3 & 5 of the said RTI application vide their letter dated 10.09.2018. The replies Page 2 of 10 furnished to the appellant are just and proper and hence the case might be dismissed.
The appellant submitted that he was not satisfied with the reply received from the respondent and submitted that suitable penalty should be levied upon the respondent for non supply of the relevant information to him in accordance with the provisions of the RTI Act.
On perusal of the relevant case record, it was noted by the Commission that the reply provided is just, proper and comprehensive but delayed by the respondent (Air India) which is deplorable for which a show cause needs to be issued to the respondent CPIO, Air India.
Accordingly, a Show Cause notice is issued to the respondent CPIO, Smt. Sangeeta Singh, General Manager Air India u/s 20 of the RTI Act to explain the following:-
Why delayed reply was provided to the appellant.
The explanation to the above stated Show Cause notice is to be submitted to the Commission by the respondent CPIO/PIO within 15 days of the receipt of this order. The present CPIO is also to submit a report to the Commission indicating the name, address, mobile no., present place of posting and designation of the CPIO working at the relevant post at the relevant period. The present respondent CPIO is to serve a copy of this order to the then respondent CPIO under intimation to the Commission. On receipt of the explanation to the said Show Cause notice, further action as deemed appropriate will be taken.
The respondent CPIO should note that in the event of non-submission of the explanation within the time stipulated above, the Commission has the liberty to take the required decision ex-parte against the respondent CPIO/PIO.
In the interest of natural justice, the show cause itself covers the point of penalty and it will be decided after the receipt of explanation from the respondent CPIO, Air India.Page 3 of 10
It was also noted that the reply provided by the M/o Civil Aviation on point no. 4 of the above stated RTI application was not proper. A more comprehensive reply in the form of certified true copies of the documents sought e.g. note sheets, letters, correspondences, e-mails etc should have been provided to the appellant as sought for information on this point is eminently disclosable under the relevant provisions of the RTI Act.
Be that as it may, since no desired information was provided to the appellant in the present case, the present respondent CPIO, M/o Civil Aviation is directed to provide revised reply on point no 4, complete in all respects to the appellant as available on record in the form of certified true copies of the documents sought e.g. note sheets, letters, correspondences, e-mails etc.(legible copies), free of charge u/s 7(6) of the RTI Act within 15 days of the receipt of the order. For this purpose, the concerned CPIO/PIO, can take assistance of any other office/department u/s 5(4) of the RTI Act.
The respondent CPIO is further directed to send a report containing the copy of the revised reply and the date of despatch of the same to the RTI appellant within 07 days thereafter to the Commission for record.
OR In case the relevant records are not available even after thorough search, the present respondent CPIO, M/o Civil Aviation is directed to submit an affidavit indicating the date of destruction / weeding out of the said records along with a copy of the order of the competent authority authorising such destruction / weeding out within one month of the receipt of this order with a copy duly endorsed to the appellant within the same time period.
With the above show cause/direction, the appeal is disposed of. Copies of the order be sent to the concerned parties free of cost.Page 4 of 10
Adjunct Order : 01.11.2018
Respondent : Shri Kirti Rao, ED Finance
Smt Kalpana Rao, ED Finance,
Air India
Explanation from Smt. Sangeeta Singh, General Manager-Finance & CPIO:-
She submitted the following explanation.
1. The RTI application dated 02.02.2017 was originally marked to CPIO, M/o Civil Aviation which was forwarded to Air India RTI Cell, NR on 10.02.2017.
2. The RTI application was forwarded to two CPIOs, namely Ms. Kalpana Rao, General Manager-Finance and company Secretary-CPIO-WR/NB and Mr. Kirti Rao, General Manager-Finance-CPIO-WB.
3. She further submitted that as per the decision of Govt. of India, Air India (WB) and Indian Airlines (NB) have been merged.
4. As far as Air India is concerned, their Head Quarter and Finance Deptt. were based in Mumbai. In other words, all the decision and payments were controlled from Mumbai only. However, in case of Indian Airlines, the decision/payments were controlled/paid from Delhi, being the head quarter.
5. A lot of streamlining was required to process staff payment, location-wise as the payments to the staff were released from various locations, e.g. for an employee, who was earlier working in Air India but posted outside Mumbai, his payment was processed in Mumbai and authority was given to other regions like Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai etc to release the same.
6. In the case of Shri. Roop Singh, who was an employee of Air India (WB) Delhi, the payment of difference of gratuity arrears pertaining to his case along with other 370 employees of Air India was processed by the Mumbai office and the Finance Deptt. of NR was authorized to release the abovesaid payment on 15.04.2009.
Page 5 of 107. The above payment was released to all the 370 employees including Shri. Roop Singh on 29.04.2009.
8. They had not received any application/complain/correspondence from any of the abovestated 370 employees, except Shri. Roop Singh who is the RTI applicant in the present case.
9. The above system, whereby Air India, Mumbai office advises the respective regions for payment has since been discontinued and respective regions are now releasing due payments on their own.
10. Further, Air India WB was having oracle accounting package and NB was having regional tally finance package till Jan 2013. Since the data was in old accounting package, it was difficult for the respondent authority to reply to the RTI/Appeal in 2017 as the data was to be collected from the respective regions and the reply was to be given by the CPIO, Mumbai.
11. The RTI appeal dated 29.03.2017 was received by the RTI Cell, NR on 03.04.2017. The NR forwarded the same to Ms. Kalpana Rao, General Manager-Finance and Company Secretary-CPIO-WR/NB and Shri. Kirti Rao, General Manager-Finance-CPIO-WB.
On receipt of the subject RTI and appeal received at the office on 28.08.2018 ( Smt Singh was the GM-Finance & CPIO-WR from April 2018) from the O/o appellate Authority-WR, Smt Singh was asked to attend the CIC case on 13.09.2018.
12. As already explained above, the RTI applicant had received excess payment of approx..Rs. 10,000, but he still chose to follow up the case with an appeal. Since the payment was authorized by the then CAO, Delhi office who had already settled the payment in 2009 and payment was pertaining to the year 2009 (more than 9 year ago), the authorities had to search very old records for sending reply to the above stated RTI application.
Page 6 of 10She requested the Commission to consider the fact that it was the decision of the Govt. of India to merge the two entities and subsequently procedure was evolved to pay salaries and allowances from respective regions and not from Mumbai which was the prevailing practice earlier. It was also a fact that due payment was released to the applicant in 2009 itself.
That CPIO had made all efforts to dig out old records of 2009 to provide the requisite reply to the applicant. However because of the constraints as mentioned above, it was difficult for the CPIO to reply to the above RTI application as discussed above.
It may also be noted that the CPIOs had been very prompt in responding to the RTI queries that had been put up to them and had always replied within the stipulated time limits.
The applicant has not lost anything on any account of the above delay and he had also received his dues fully in 2009. Even after receiving excess payment, he chose to file the RTI but no complaint had been received from any of the other 370 employees whose cases were similarly settled along with that of the present appellant.
14. She further submitted details of the earlier CPIOs as under:
(a) Mrs. Kalpana Rao (at present Executive Director-Finance and company Secretary) General Manager-F & CS CPIO WR/NB Address: Air India Ltd., 3rd Floor, Finance Building, Old Airport, Kalina, Santa Cruz (East), Mumbai - 400029.
(b) Shri Kirti Rao (At Present Executive Director-Finance) General Manager-F-CPIO-WB Address: Air India Ltd, 2nd Floor, Finance Building, Old Airport, Kalina, Santa Cruz (East), Mumbai - 400029.Page 7 of 10
Remedial Action
15. In order to ensure that the above situation does not recur in future, the respondent had requested their central nodal officer, located at Delhi to issue guidelines to all CPIOs and Appellate Authorities to take necessary action for disposing of RTIs at their end instead of transferring the RTI cases to other regions in order to avoid recurrence of such situation in future. Explanation from Smt. Kalpana Rao and Shri Kirti Rao, Executive Director- Finance:-
At the outset, they tendered sincere apologies for the delay in responding to the appellant, Shri Roop Singh and requested the Commission to take cognizance of the circumstances due to which the response of the respondent official was delayed.
As clarified by the current CPIO they reiterated the circumstances which led to the delay in the sending of the reply to Shri Roop Singh, the appellant:
Shri Roop Singh was an employee of Air India" wide Body aircraft" and he had sought information regarding difference of his gratuity and leave encashment arrears. The case was initially referred to the MOCA who in turn forwarded it to the RTI Cell of Air India, northern region. The RTI Cell, northern region in turn forwarded the same to both of them, who were then the CPIO for narrow body aircraft, western region and CPIO for the wide body aircraft, western region, respectively.
The CPIO for the narrow body aircraft, western region could not take action since the employee belonged to the organization for wide body aircrafts. The CPIO for wide body aircraft, western region could not also take immediate action since though the payment was processed from Mumbai, necessary authority for payment was sent to Delhi to make the necessary payment. Since the case was more than ten years old, it took considerable time for them to retrieve the old records. In addition, erstwhile organization, Indian Airlines and Air India went for a common system of Page 8 of 10 accounting only from 2013. Till then, they were on two different accounting systems, which made it all the more difficult to trace old payment details. Finally, they could retrieve the relevant records and on checking of the same it was found out that Shri Roop Singh had been overpaid and that there was certain amount to be recovered from him rather than any amount payable to him. It is surprising that he chose to file an appeal under the RTI Act when in fact he received his dues in excess in 2009 itself. It may also please be noted that the payment was made to 370 other employees at the same time and they did not receive any single representation from any of the other employees.
Decision:
The Commission finds that both the CPIOs had not taken any step to reply to the present RTI application on time. However, Shri Kirti Rao was the concerned CPIO for replying to questions regarding organisation dealing with wide body aircrafts and that he was the holder of information sought for in the present case. The delay in providing reply under the RTI Act was w.e.f Feb 2017 to Sep 2018.
Smt Kalpana Rao is issued a warning for not providing any reply to the appellant intimating him that the information sought by him is not related to the organisation dealing with narrow body aircrafts.
The Commission hereby imposes penalty of Rs. 10,000/- on Shri Kirti Rao, the then CPIO for not providing the requisite information within the time period specified under the RTI Act to the appellant. Accordingly, he is directed to pay a sum of Rs 10,000/- in 5 equal monthly installments. The Chairman and Managing Director, Air India Ltd. is directed to recover the said amount of Rs 10,000/- from the salary payable to Shri Kirti Rao and remit the same by way of demand draft drawn in favour of 'PAO CAT' New Delhi in 5 equal monthly instalments. The first installment should reach the Commission by 10.01.2019 and the last installment should reach by 10.05.2019. The Demand Drafts should be sent to the Page 9 of 10 Deputy Registrar (CR-II), e-mail;[email protected] Room no. 106, First Floor, Central Information Commission, Baba Gangnath Marg, Munirka, New Delhi- 110067.
The registry of this bench is directed to send a copy of this order to the Chairman and Managing Director, Air India Ltd. for compliance of this order.
The Chairman and Managing Director, Air India Ltd. is directed to take action as per the above direction and submit an action taken report within 15 days from the receipt of this order.
With the above order, the showcause proceeding is treated as closed. Copies of the order are to be sent to the concerned parties free of cost.
अिमताभ भ टाचाय)
Amitava Bhattacharyya (अिमताभ टाचाय
Information Commissioner ( सूचना आयु )
Authenticated true copy
(अिभ मा णत स या पत ित)
Ajay Kumar Talapatra (अजय कुमार तलाप )
Dy. Registrar (उप-पंजीयक)
011- 26182594 / [email protected]
दनांक / Date
Copy to:
i)Chairman and Managing Director, Air India Ltd, 113, Airlines House, Gurudwara Rakabganj Road, New Delhi, Delhi 110001.
ii) Deputy Registrar (CR-II), e-mail;[email protected] Room no. 106, First Floor, Central Information Commission, Baba Gangnath Marg, Munirka, New Delhi-110067.Page 10 of 10