CIC junks 141 RTI pleas by 1 applicant against Delhi lieutenant governor's office

NEW DELHI: The Central Information Commission has dismissed in one go 141 petitions filed by an RTI applicant against the Delhi lieutenant governor's office, calling it a misuse of the transparency law to inundate the office with pleas seeking information unrelated to it. Warning the applicant, information commissioner YK Sinha said in case such an avalanche of "frivolous, vexatious and wasteful" litigations is received by the commission, it will be compelled to dismiss such applications without hearing on the grounds of being repetitive and as such adjudication will serve no larger public interest.
The applicant, Dinesh, had filed a number of pleas under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the LG's office seeking details of properties, illegal constructions, allotment of houses, among other things, through separate petitions.
Claiming that he had not received any information in response, he approached the CIC seeking directions to the LG office for issuance of the information sought by him.
The LG's office, represented by noted RTI activist Subhash Agrawal, said the applications have been replied to or transferred to the authorities concerned after intimating the applicant.
Sinha said, "...it is noted that the appellant has consistently stated that he has not received any information from the PIO or the FAA and yet he incessantly kept filing all the RTI applications in the LG's office. Response(s) received from the respondent, however reveal a different story".
Dismissing all 141 petitions in five separate orders, Sinha noted that though the queries raised by the appellant are claimed to be in the larger public interest, his modus operandi is to file a large number of pleas which are "irrelevant" and "unrelated".