No penalty under RTI Act imposed on PIO due to her poor medical condition
6 Feb, 2013An applicant had filed two applications with the Staff Selection Commission under the Right to Information (RTI) Act – one on September 16, 2010 and the other on December 8, 2010. The then public information officer (PIO) in the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) Jyoti Gulati had sent a combined reply to the applicant on January 10, 2011.
As the RTI Act states that the reply has to be furnished within a month, the reply provided for the first application was delayed. As the matter was brought to the Central information Commission (CIC), it issued a show cause notice to the PIO as to why she should not be penalised for not giving the information in time.
In the recent hearing of the case, the then PIO has submitted that she is a patient of schizophrenia for which she has been under treatment for past few years and the disease sometimes causes the incapability of dealing with the matters. The Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra ruled that as the delay was caused by the peculiar medical condition of the PIO, no penalty will be imposed on her. He has also asked the SSC to be careful in the appointment of PIOs.