Here is a phenomenal example of how officials at the National Green Tribunal (NGT) squandered away money, and it raises concerns regarding utter wastage of public money.

In a bid to contest the demand of an RTI applicant who refused to pay Rs 40 to get information, NGT spent a whopping Rs 33,000 as litigation fee. RTI activist R K Jain had sought to know from NGT the number of RTI applications it received and also the status of its disposal. Despite orders from First Appellate Authority (FAA), the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) insisted on a demand for

The case came to the notice of the Central Information Commission (CIC) which directed the concerned officials to bring this order to the notice of Chairman, NGT (a former Justice of Supreme Court) for necessary action.

“It is pathetic that the NGT office did not care to incur expenditure of Rs 11000+ to hire services of learned legal practitioner to just to argue in First Appeal that information was not given because Rs 40 was not paid, and for the same they are ready to forgo Rs 21,000 plus for lawyer to argue that single sentence before the Commission in second appeal,” said Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu. The Commission also slapped a penalty of Rs 25,000 on CPIO Chetan Chawala and asked NGT to initiate disciplinary action against him for not implementing the FAA order.

(With inputs from PTI)

(Feature image source: PTI)