Squeezed By Reply: MP Man Gets 40,000 Page Reply To His RTI Plea, Had To Load SUV

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Right to Information Act has given a lot of power to the citizens of India. It has also increased the accountability of the government to public. there are compulsions attached to it which allows the public to get a fair reply from government offices. But in this case, it seems the government office wanted to literally squeeze the citizen who filed the RTI. A man from the state of Madhya Pradesh received a 40,000-page reply to his RTI plea. Well, he couldn’t obviously carry it with his hands. So he took it in his SUV, making it a ‘car-load’ reply.

All about the RTI plea

Dharmendra Shukla had filed a request for information (RTI) with the Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO) of Indore in order to obtain information on the tenders and bill payments relating to the purchase of drugs, equipment, and auxiliary materials during the Covid-19 period.

When he did not obtain the information within the allotted one-month time, he went to the first appellate officer, who accepted his plea and ordered that the necessary information be provided without charge. Fortunately, the petitioner, was exempted from paying Rs.2 per page because his RTI request was not responded to within a month. Otherwise, he would have to pay Rs. 80,000 just to get those documents.

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The concern is not 40,000 pages

“I took my SUV car to ferry the documents and the entire vehicle got packed. Only the driver’s seat remained free,” said Shukla.

In the meantime, the CMHO was instructed to take action against the official who caused the state exchequer to lose 80,000. Because the information was not provided to Shukla in a timely manner and had to be given to him for free. The order was isued by the appellate officer and regional joint director of the state health department, Dr. Sharad Gupta.

Srishti Verma