Post unfilled, file your appeal later, RTI activist told

Post unfilled, file your appeal later, RTI activist told

Jeeva | TNN 23 april 2011

Chennai: V Gopalakrishnan, a right to information (RTI) activist from MGR Nagar, got a strange reply from the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (TNERC) last year to his appeal under the RTI Act.
“The official in the post of first appellate authority retired from service a month ago. The post will be filled up soon. Hence you can file your appeal once the post is filled up,” the TNERC’s public information officer replied to Gopalakrishnan.
Gopalakrishnan had sought information on a number of aspects about the functioning of the TNERC.
Gopalakrishnan then moved the Tamil Nadu Information Commission. “TNERC cannot give such a reply to an RTI appeal. It should have designated an existing official to function as an appellate authority till the post was filled,” Gopalakrishnan said.
Admitting his plea, the commission in January 2011 directed TNERC to provide the information to him within 15 days. It also observed, “TNERC should have someone holding charge of the post of appellate authority. It should avoid giving such replies in future.”
The TNERC, on its part, didn’t want to bow down to the information commission’s order.
It moved the Madras high court contending that the information commission had no jurisdiction to any order on the first appeal pass such an order.
“The Tamil Nadu Information Commission can pass orders only on second and final appeals under the RTI Act and it cannot decide on the first appeal filed by an applicant. The information commission’s order is liable to be quashed as it had encroached the TNERC’s jurisdiction,” TNERC said.
It has also included the Tamil Nadu Information Commission as a respondent.
The TNERC said it had filled up the post of first appellate authority when the applicant took up the issue before the information commission.
The Madras high court recently granted a stay to the information commission’s order and the matter is scheduled to come up for hearing in the first week of June.