New Delhi:
The Central Information Commission (CIC) has lambasted Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) officials for protecting "unauthorized construction" and colluding with builders by withholding information on them while issuing show cause notices to three engineers of the civic body in the matter.
The civic body came under fire from Central Information Commission as it did not give information about an unauthorized construction in the Pubjabi Mohalla area of the national capital even after seven months of filing the RTI application by one Kamal Sharma.
During the hearing at the information panel, Municipal Corporation of Delhi accepted there was a delay in providing the information for the building which was an "unauthorized construction".
"It is evident that the information had not been provided earlier to protect and safeguard the interest of the unauthorized construction," Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi said.
The Punjabi Mohalla in Sabzi Mandi area comes in the North West district of the national capital which according to Delhi police reports has more than 270 illegal constructions.
"It is disgusting that hundreds of RTI applications are revealing unauthorized constructions of complete buildings and showing the obvious collusion of MCD officials," he said.
The Information Commissioner said the responsibility of not providing the information lies on three engineers of the civic body M R Mittal, V S Chauhan and Pannna Lal, who were posted in the area during the period.
"MCD is unable and unwilling to stop this complete illegal activity. Such an attitude breeds corruption and complete disrespect for the rule of law," Gandhi said.
He said it is apparent that the deemed Public Information Officers were guilty of not furnishing information within the time specified, of one month, as per the requirement of the RTI Act and issued show cause notices against them.
Recently, Gandhi has slammed the MCD for "systematic corruption" because of files getting missing from the civic body and had also slapped maximum penalty of Rs 25,000 on two of its officials.
"In the entire MCD system thousands of Tehbazari files are claimed to be 'not traceable'. There appears to be some fundamental systemic corruption by which the allottees of tehbazaris are bled by corrupt officers by claiming that their files are missing," he had said in the order.