In Nov. 12, appellant’s ration card was transferred to a fair price shop 30 Kms away; he was unable to draw rations since then - CIC: show cause notice issued for imposing penalty & compensation of Rs. 250 p.m. granted till the restoration of ration card
17 May, 2014Appellant’s ration card was transferred to a fair price shop 30 Kms away from his house from where he was not able to draw the rations since then - appellant was purchasing the same in the open market by paying Rs.800/ extra every month and thus suffering financial loss - he sought details of various ration card holders, details of fair price shops, details of the cards which are transferred, details of the employees who will handle complaints, guidelines for transfer of ration cards from one area to another area etc. - CIC: show cause notice issued to PIO for penalty and compensation of Rs. 250 per month till the date of restoration of ration card granted to appellant
FACTS
The appellant Mr. Prem Raj is present. The Public Authority is represented by Mr. KG Sachedeva, FSO, Circle23 and Dr. Vikram Singhal, Asstt. Commissioner (Central), Food & Supply Deptt. GNCTD, Delhi.
2. The appellant has filed the above 5 appeals against the same Public Authority and hence heard together today. He submitted in all the five appeals above that he is seeking information regarding the guidelines for transfer of ration cards from one area to another area, details of various ration card holders, details of fair price shops and kerosene oil shops, details of the cards which are closed/transferred, details of the employees who will handle complaints and about his own ration card, which was transferred since 15-11-2012, to a fair price shop in Bawana, which is 30 Kms away from his house from where he was not able to draw the rations since then and purchasing the same in the open market by paying Rs.800/ extra every month and thus suffering financial loss.
3. The respondents Public Authority submitted that they have received only two hearing notices out of the 5 appeals listed today and even though they have no case details of the other three, with them to submit before the Commission, they can take the directions from the Commission for complying with the same. The respondent PIO, Dr. Vikram Singhal, Asst. Commissioner (Central) also submitted that he has taken over as PIO only recently as the earlier PIO has retired and he has not yet got the RTI files record from the his predecessor’s office. The respondent also submitted that there are some 9 ration cards which were transferred to some other Fair Price shop and this was due to the computer system fault and no human error is involved. Except the appellant’s card, all other cards were set right. The respondent felt that the appellant’s card also should have been set right before the enactment of National Food Security Act. But now that the respondent office is neither issuing the new cards nor renewing the old cards until July, 2014, the appellant has to wait till July, 2014 to get his ration card transferred to the nearest Fair price shop. The Commission observes that this will amount to denial of ration card and ration to deserving appellant, which go against the objective of food security. It is not justified.
4. The submissions made by the appellant and the respondent authority were heard. The Commission directs the respondent authority/PIO in the above 5 appeals as under:
(1) To comply with the FAA order 14-9-2012 and to show cause why maximum penalty cannot be imposed for not complying with the FAA order within the prescribed time,
(2) To furnish the desired information to the appellant,
(3) To comply with the FAA order dated 9-1-2013,
(4) To furnish the information on points 1 to 5 of the RTI application dt. 5-12-2012, and
(5) To furnish information on point no. 3 of the RTI application dt. 1-4-2013 and fix the responsibility for transferring the appellant’s ration card to Bawana since 15-11-2012 and revert the card to the nearest ration shop by crossing the idiosyncrasies of the computer system and treating the appellant’s card as a different case and beyond the computer system, as the respondent himself admitted that this was to be done by their office before the enactment of National Food Security Act (NFSA).
(6) The Commission found that appellant was put to financial loss because of denial of subsidized ration, without any of his mistake. Though the appellant claimed that he sustained extra expenditure of Rs. 800/ per month, as the details were not provided by him, the Commission assumes that the appellant must have spent Rs. 250/ extra per month and therefore directs the respondent authority to pay Rs. 250/ per month since 15-11-2012 till the date of restoration of his ration and ration card. The above directions of the Commission have to be complied with by the respondent authority, within 15 days from the date of receipt of this order. The explanation of the respondent/the concerned PIO in appeal (1) above, to the show cause notice, should reach the Commission within 3 weeks from the date of receipt of this order.
5. With the above directions, the Commission orders accordingly in file No.(1) above and disposes of the cases accordingly in the rest of the files.
(M. Sridhar Acharyulu)
Information Commissioner
Citation: Mr.Prem Raj v. Deptt. Food & Supply in (1) File No.CIC/AD/A/2013/000297SA, (2) File No.CIC/AD/A/2013/000298SA (3) File No.CIC/AD/A/2013/000922SA (4) File No.CIC/DS/A/2013/002469SA (5) File No.CIC/DS/A/2013/002470SA