Civic chief in court over RTI query on poles

A common man has succeeded in showing how the Right to Information Act, 2005 can be used to bring corruption to the notice of bigwigs in the local administration.

Civic chief in court over RTI query on poles

A common man has succeeded in showing how the Right to Information Act, 2005 can be used to bring corruption to the notice of bigwigs in the local administration.

Mahendra Davade,who had noticed a fraud in shifting of poles, promptly filed an RTI application asking for details of the shifting in the city. This has forced the commissioner of the Municipal Corporation to to take cognizance of the case and testify in court.

Pravinsinh Pardeshi, the Pune municipal commissioner filed applications along with two others in order to be excused as witnesses in a private criminal case. But they were rejected by the additional chief judicial magistrate S T Dhawale recently.

Pardeshi, the PMC's chief auditor and chief accountant had been summoned in a case filed by Mahendra Dhavde against PMC deputy city engineer Srinivas Kandyl of the pole shifting department for causing financial loss to the civic body.

Dhavde had moved the court after the PMC and the police failed to take action against the official. Now the top official has to take cognizance.

After receiving the summons, the PMC's lawyer Bhagyashree Alate, representing Pardeshi and the others, cited a Supreme Court ruling that they should be called only in rare and exceptional cases because they are overburdened with work.

Alate said that her clients had been summoned before the court only to harass them and prayed that the summons be recalled in view of the apex court ruling.

Opposing the applications, Dhavde's lawyer, Shailesh Brahme, submitted that the magistrate court did not have the power to recall its own order.

The case will now come up for hearing on February 10.