Information on Mr. Sharad Pawar’s traveling on private plane:
Says Mr. Eknath Khadse (BJP leader):
‘Gathering information about the Pawars was a difficult task. However, we used the RTI Act to search the data of air-travel of Mr. Pawar and his family members on Balwa’s air craft’ from the Pune air traffic control. Through RTI application it was gathered that Balwa’s plane was used by Pawar on several occasions and on one trip, besides BCC president Shashank Manohar and his wife, the Balwas accompanied Pawar and his family to Dubai. Khadse has also reportedly dug up facts to prove that Supriya, along with her husband Sadanand and DB Realty, was the promoter of a technology park near Pune set up on an illegally procured land.
Disclosure of personal properties by CIC:
In a major step to introduce greater transparency and accountability, the six Central Information Commissioners now have declared details of their properties on the Commission’s Website.
The Commissioners draw a salary of Rs. 90,000 p.m. Following are the brief summary of declarations made:
S. Mishra : Land, property worth Rs. 1.5cr.
D. Sandhu : Agriculture land worth Rs. 81,000,
2 houses worth Rs. 5.5cr.
S. Singh : house, flat worth Rs. 66.5 lakh.
S. Gandhi : Flat worth Rs. 80,000 (cost at
time of purchase), plus shares,
mutual funds and bank deposits.
A. Dixit : Flat, cottage worth Rs. 51 lakh.
M. L. Sharma : Property worth Rs. 4.50 lakh.
Selection procedure of for appointment of Chief of Trai:.
The selection procedure of the chairman of telecom regulator Trai, including all the details of the selection committee meeting, should be made public, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has held. The panel rejected the plea of the cabinet secretariat that the information was personal in nature and cannot be given u/s. 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, which prohibits disclosure of such details.
“We fail to understand how the desired information could be classified as personal information at all … The information sought in these cases is far from personal. Selection and appointment to certain posts in the government are part of the administrative decision-making process and must be placed in the public domain as soon as possible in order to ensure transparency,” Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra said. He directed the secretariat to allow the RTI applicant the inspection of the entire file related to the selection of the Trai chairman.
BMC’s functioning :
We all know that it takes months, sometimes years to get projects and files cleared from Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) babus. However, if you have the right connections, then your work could be done in a single day. In 2008 the BMC displayed exemplary promptness and granted permissions in a single day for construction of 13 additional floors on a building in Dadar. Interestingly, all clearances were granted to the builder and the area of a reserved public playground was reduced to make way for the building.
The issue came to light when residents procured documents under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. They learnt how BMC’s Building Proposal Department allowed developers, Finetone Realtors Pvt. Ltd. to construct 13 additional floors on the plush 20-storey Garden Court building in Dadar. Arun Sapkal, a Dadar resident and RTI activist said, “It’s shocking how the BMC first granted permission and later issued stop notice to the builder after the construction was over?” However, developers Ramakant Jadhav of Finetone Realtors Pvt. Ltd. said, “ we have all the necessary permissions in place as per the DCR rules for construction of the building and the playground. We have kept the reservations as allowed by the BMC.”
Information on ITR thru RTI:
Manoj Kumar Saini made an RTI application to get information on income tax-return (ITR) of his father-in-law Mr Munna Lal Saini, CIC Deepak Sandhu ruled:
The I-T returns of individuals do not enjoy ‘absolute ban’ from disclosure CIC has held, while directing the I-T department to provide details of the total income of a person to his son-in-law who is facing a dowry case. We direct the CPIO to provide information pertaining to the taxable income of Munna Lal Saini, father-in-law of the appellant,” Information Commissioner Deepak Sandhu said. The case relates to RTI application filed by Manoj Kumar Saini, who sought to know income of his father-in-law Munna Lal Saini from the I-T as he needed it to buttress his arguments in a dowry case filed against him.
Maharashtra State Information Commission’s Annual Report for the year 2010 is out, just now only in Marathi. Some brief statistics:
RTI applications filed : 5.49 lakh
Appeals received : 19,483
Appeals disposed : 17,266
Complaint received : 4,592
Complaint disposed : 3,911
Public Information Officers penalised : 523
Total penalties : Rs 34.38 lakh
Department action against PIOs : 602
