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F.No.CIC/AT/A/2009/000772
Dated, the 31st December, 2009.
Appellant : Shri Manoj Chowdhury
Respondents : Dept. of Expenditure
This second appeal came up for hearing through
videoconferencing (VC) on 31.12.2009. Appellant was present at NIC VC
facility at Itanagar. Respondents⎯represented by Ms. Renu Jain,
CPIO⎯were present at CIC office at New Delhi.
2. I find from the documents furnished by the appellant and the
submissions made during the hearing that the CPIO had provided a reply
dated 23.07.2009 to the appellant’s RTI- application dated 23.4.2009
which was relating to the rule /Government order for drawal of double
HRA by government employees who were transferred to the north-east
region from outside and on their exercising the option for permanent
absorption in the north-east zone. He also wanted to have the rules
governing the determination of seniority of such officers which
according to him was maintained on zonal basis for the North East zone
and not in the zone from where such employees might have been
transferred to north-east.
3. Appellate authority in her order dated 07.09.2009 endorsed the
information as conveyed by the CPIO on 23.07.2009 to the appellant.
She further noted that appellant could only be provided the information
available in the records of the public authority, who were not obliged to
provide explanations to him regarding his surmises and expectations.
4. Appellant stated during the hearing that the documents so far
provided to him by the respondents did not meet the full range of his
queries. He however could not explain how it was so.
5. While I agree with the appellate authority that an applicant could
not engage a public authority in a dialogue about his queries – in this
case claims and entitlements of a certain category of employees, it
would nevertheless be in order if the department gives clarification
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about such entitlements in order to avoid confusion and multiple
interpretations of extant provisions.
6. Matter is, therefore, remitted back to the appellate authority for
de-novo consideration.
7. Appeal disposed of accordingly.
8. Copy of this direction be sent to the parties.
( A.N. TIWARI )
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