False information given under RTI Act - Fine of Rs.25,000/- is imposed.

The state information commission has imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on a tahsildar in Vandavasi, Tiruvannamalai district, for providing incorrect information about the disbursement of old-age pension in his taluk.

As T Retna Pandian, an activist, had not got the information he sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, he filed an appeal before the state commission. State chief information commissioner S Ramakrishnan and information commissioner G Ramakrishnan, in their order, said, "The collector of Tiruvannamalai will levy the maximum penalty of Rs 25,000, which has become leviable on the Public Information Officer (special tahsildar), remit it in the government account and report the fact to the commission within four weeks of this order." The commission also ordered the collector to depute a senior officer to provide correct information to Pandian, general secretary of 5th Pillar India, a Chennai-based NGO.

Pandian had filed an RTI application in June 2008, seeking details about the beneficiaries of the old-age pension scheme following complaints of political interference in disbursement. "More than 20 people from Vandavasi said their old-age pensions had been stopped as they had not supported a particular candidate in the last local body election. I filed an application seeking details of disbursement of Central and state government sponsored old-age pension schemes. The tahsildar, in his reply on June 27, 2008, said 6,887 people had applied and, except in 1,000 cases where the postal department could not deliver the pension, the others were given pension regularly," Pandian said. The PIO asked Pandian to pay a fee of Rs 300 for a copy of the file. Pandian paid the money and filed an appeal seeking replies to more queries, but did not receive a reply.

Pandian approached the state commission on September 20, 2008. The commission, which held its first inquiry on February 25, 2009, ordered tahsildar M Murugesan to provide the replies. Murugesan said 7,827 people were getting pension and 1,401 applications were rejected. Since the figures contradicted those given by the PIO earlier, the petitioner once again moved the commission.

Tiruvannamalai district collector M Rajendran said, "We have decided to impose a fine on two special tahsildars and two section assistants, who provided wrong information to the commission. If there are complaints about discrepancies in disbursement of pension, we will investigate."

The assets of the Judges of SUPREME COURT of India declared.

The Hon'ble Judges of SUPREME COURT of India have declared their assets and the details are posted in the Supreme Court Website.

To verify click the following link:

http://www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in/assets.htm

The reckless mining and quarrying activities in the Nilgiris -HC lamented.

The Madras High Court has directed the state government to submit the list of 35 violators and officials, who were identified by the CB-CID as being responsible for the reckless mining and quarrying activities in the Nilgiris.

The list, along with the action, if any, taken against them shall be furnished before the court on Wednesday, ruled a division bench comprising justice SJ Mukhopadhaya and justice M Duraiswamy. The bench was passing orders on a public interest writ petition filed by advocate Elephant G Rajendran, managing trustee of In Defence of Environment and Animals (IDEA).

The petition, supported by a number of photographs, revealed a largescale plunder of natural resources in the Western Ghats. It named 14 locations where quarrying was going on unchecked for several years. He claimed that several hills were blasted with dynamites and over 5,000 truckloads of blue metal had been carted away from just four sites alone. This, inspite of the fact that a Supreme Court order in 2003 specifically banned excavation and quarrying activities in the hills.

In April 2008, a division bench of the court banned all forms of quarrying in the Nilgiris and directed the police and transport authorities to curb use of dynamite and impound heavy vehicles involved in the illegal mining operation.

In October 2008, the court lamented that it was "pathetic that so many disturbances have been caused to natural resources." It also asked the CB-CID to probe the issue.

Passing further orders on the matter on November 5, the present division bench headed by justice Mukhopadhaya said the state government should come out with a scheme putting the onus of protecting the natural resources on the officers concerned. Elaborating, it said, "for example, if illegal mining is done in a particular area, tahsildar, officer-in-charge of the jurisdictional police station and the officer who has jurisdiction over the mining area may be held responsible for not taking any action against illegal miners. They may be proceeded departmentally and if necessary, may be suspended."

It then asked the advocate-general PS Raman to furnish the list of 35 officials and others identified by the additional director-general of police, CB-CID, who probed the issue.

“I want to create a convention of judges declaring their assets on the date of their swearing in,” - Justice K. Chandru.

On Monday, minutes after being sworn in as permanent judge of the Madras high court, justice K Chandru created a flutter when he submitted a sealed cover containing the details of his assets and liabilities to chief justice H L Gokhale. “I want to create a convention of judges declaring their assets on the date of their swearing in,” he informed a gathering of judges, court officers and advocates.

Besides justice Chandru, 13 other additional judges — V Ramasubramanian, S Manikumar, A Selvam, PR Shivakumar, G Rajasuria, T Sudanthiram, S Nagamuthu, S Palanivelu, KK Sasidharan, M Venugopal, V Periya Karuppiah, R Subbiah and M Sathyanarayanan — were sworn in as permanent judges.

On September 3, chief justice Gokhale had announced the resolution passed at a full court meeting of judges, that they would declare their assets on October 31. The deadline, however, was revised later and put off to November 15. With barely a week to go, now justice Chandru has become the first judge in the court to furnish all the required details in full public view.

It all started on May 7, 1997 when the Supreme Court adopted Restatement of Values and circulated it to all courts for consideration. The resolution was adopted by the Madras high court only in 2008, during justice AP Shah’s tenure. The resolution mandates judges to voluntarily disclose their assets and liabilities to the respective chief justice. These particulars, however, are not to be put in public domain for common perusal.

On September 28 — days before the Dehi high court delivered its verdict on a writ petition filed by the Supreme Court questioning a Central Information Commission ruling that the chief justice of India’s office too was under the ambit of the Right To Information Act — chief justice of India K G Balakrishnan formally announced that judges of the apex court would voluntarily declare their assets..

On September 30, the Kerala HC became the first court in the country to make public the asset and liability details of all its judges.

The Supreme Court judges came out with their assets and liability details about 10 days ago.

An important judgment by Hon'ble Mr.Justice.M.M.Sundresh of Madras High Court.

Coming to the rescue of a large number of sub-inspector aspirants, who were not selected in 2007 due to mistakes in evaluation of their papers in the recruitment test, the Madras High Court has directed the authorities to consider the case of those candidates who had given correct answers to three questions.

Justice MM Sundresh, disposing of a batch of writ petitions, said the Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board and other authorities must prepare a list of unselected candidates who had given correct answers, and conduct interview for them. If they come within the cut-off marks after the award of additional marks, then they should be accommodated in the available vacancies.

The exercise, which should be completed in three months, is expected to benefit about 40 candidates.

The whole case revolves around three objective type questions which had multiple-choice answers in the written test conducted on December 20, 2007, for the selection of 682 sub-inspectors of police. The board had given wrong answer key to the questions, resulting in wrong answers getting marks and correct answers being rejected during evaluation.

The present petitions were filed after a query under the Right To Information Act revealed the details. On representation, the board conceded that the mistakes had indeed been committed, but said the candidates could not be considered for selection.

Counsel for the petitioners said the wronged students should be accommodated in the force, and the board could not take advantage of its own mistake. The advocate-general, however, said the move would affect aspirants in future, and added that there was an inordinate delay in these candidates approaching the court.

Justice Sundresh, rejecting the submissions, pointed out that the candidates were alert enough to file and lose one round of litigation, before coming across the mistakes committed by the authorities. Noting that the authorities should have noticed the mistakes at the earliest and replaced unqualified candidates with the suitable ones.

Observing that fairplay, integrity and transparency would enhance public confidence in the system, the judge said they would also reduce litigation. He also noted that in future the board must verify the key answers immediately after the written examination and publish them in the website and newspapers.