Land purchases by Himachal ministers revealed under RTI
21 Dec, 2012A RTI activist claims to have filed a chargesheet consisting of 30 issues in Chief Minister’s Office in Himachal Pradesh. Later he filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to know the status of the chargesheet.
When the applicant didn’t get a reply, he filed a complaint with the state information commission (CIC). After CIC’s order, the information was provided to him but one question pertaining to the quantity of land purchased by the CM and the ministers in tourist destinations and cash crop growing areas of the state was left unanswered.
The applicant then filed another complaint after which the Deputy Secretary, Revenue was asked by the State Information Commission (SIC) to provide the information. The deputy secretary provided the information that he had already received from various deputy commissioners of the state. According to the information, no minister possessed land in Una, Sirmaur, Shimla, Chamba, Mandi, Lahaul-Spiti, Bilaspur and Hamirpur. There was no information available for Kullu, Kinnaur, Kangra and Solan.