Dug-up road in your locality? You have right to know

LUCKNOW: If a road leading to your locality is being dug and you want to know why, you can. In one such recent case, the court of the information commissioner has emphasised this point and in fact fined the Jal Kal department for giving false information to a resident about a road it had dug up in his colony.

The court also ordered the department to release the information sought under an RTI query within two days.

The matter dates back to 2012, when Siddhartha Vijai Narayan, a resident of River Bank Colony, spotted some labourers digging the road leading to the British era locality. “Seeing them digging the road took me by a surprise, as they were spoiling the beauty. On inquiring, they told me Jal Kal department was laying a pipeline,” Siddhartha recalled. However, the labourers failed to answer his other queries.

Refusing to make do with vague, unsatisfactory replies, Siddhartha, a city-based activist, filed an RTI application on December 26, 2012. “I asked the reason behind the digging and other questions, like if private agencies were allowed to dig the road. But I got irrelevant answers from the Jal Kal department,” he said.

On June 26, 2013, the matter reached the court, which ordered the department to make the information available to the seeker. Still, he got no information.

“I pursued the matter further, and on June 26 , 2014, a court of infor mation commissioner imposed a fine of Rs25,000 on the department,” Siddhartha added.

However, when the authorities remained heedless even after the fine, the another court of another information commissioner on October 29 ordered the Jal Kal department t o release certified copies of information to the plaintiff within two hours. “It was a historic judgment, as for the first time I realised the power of a common man. The information was provided to me within two hours,” said Siddharth proudly.