Apka Adhikar

IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
EXTRAORDINARY SIVIL WRIT JURISDICTION
CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO. 6442 OF 2007

IN THE MATTER OF:
SHRI JAI KANT GUPTA                        … Petitioner

versus

CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION AND OTHERS    …Respondents

A F F I D V I T

I, Jai Kant Gupta Son of Late Shri Shyam Lal Gupta aged about 47 years resident of NPCC Base Workshop P O Matigara– 734010, Siliguri, West Bengal do hereby solemnly and affirm swear as under:

1.    That I am the petitioner in the said writ petition and I am conversant with the facts and circumstances of the case and as such competent to swear this affidavit.

2.    That the petitioner is filing this affidavit on the instructions of this Hon’ble Court passed on 31.08.2007

3.    That petitioner is posted at Matigara base workshop of National Projects Construction Corporation Limited (hereinafter NPCC Ltd.) on the post of Senior Accountant in the cadre of Supervisory Staff.

4.    That, petitioner is not the Disbursing Officer of the unit. The Unit Officer of the unit has been empowered and doing the work as Drawing and Disbursing Officer. Shri S K Chakraborty, Executive Engineer is working as Drawing and Disbursing Officer since November 2004.

5.    That the petitioner has never been the Drawing and Disbursing Officer. Further, there is no such designation of “In Charge of the Finance Wing” in the establishment. The Unit Officer is in charge of the Drawing and Disbursing Officer. Below the Unit Officer is the Accounts Officer. Petitioner is not an Accounts Officer. Below the Accounts Officer, Assistant Accounts Officer. The petitioner is neither the Assistant Accounts Officer. Below this post, the Senior Accountant is posted in the unit and the petitioner is the one. Below the petitioner, no body from the Accounts is posted; hence the petitioner is the junior most in the unit.

6.    That the petitioner is posted in the Finance Department, and doing the job of the routine work as per instruction of his immediate superior. The work profile of the petitioner includes checking and adjustment for the bills of sub Contractors, Suppliers, Employees and others, posting in ledgers, preparation of Trial Balance and balance Sheet of the Unit and it also includes preparation of salary bills of staff members of the unit. But this is done purely as per convention as the rules are not available in the field units.

7.    To establish this point, the petitioner got information under RTI Act from the Field Unit Officer, Matigara Base Workshop, vide his letter no. 253119/285 Dated 13.10.2006, that the manual of orders of the Corporation, which also contains the Pay and Allowance of Staff of NPCC Limited in field units, is not available in the unit. This letter of the Unit Officer is marked and annexed as Annexure P-1.

8.    In an another matter dealing with some departmental enquiry against the petitioner, Mr. P C Sarkar, then posted as Senior Office Superintendent and currently posted as Assistant Administrative Officer at Matigara Base Workshop Unit in a deposition as Prosecution Witness No. 3 in the Cross Examination on 12.12.05 informed that the NPCC rules are not available at Matigara Base Unit and he has not seen any rule in Unit Office of NPCC since his date of his joining to NPCC in 1979. Relevant Extracts of the deposition of Mr Sarkar is as under:

“Q2.    What is the rule regarding payment of LTC advance and its recovery?
Ans.    In Matigara unit, NPCC rules were not available therefore we were following the practices.
Q3.    Since the period you have joined NPCC, have you seen NPCC rules about what is asked in Q. No. 2 above?
Ans.    I joined NPCC in 1979. Since then, I have not seen any such NPCC rules.
The copy of the deposition made by Mr Sarkar is marked and annexed as Annexure P-2.

9.    That these new rules of 1964, contrary to the claims of the opposite parties, are not available even on the website of the NPCC Limited. On the website of NPCC Limited, link directing to the Manual of Orders as posted apparently on 22nd February 2007, contains old rules regarding Pay and Allowance of regular Establishment set out at page 16 of the petition. This rule is available at the following link of the NPCC website: http://npcc.gov.in/pdf/Manual_of_Orders_22Feb2007.pdf. Petitioner accessed this link on 3rd September 2007. Further, the petitioner also likes to submit that the said rules are not available in any published form in the Matigara Base Workshop Unit.

10.    That the payments of pay and allowances of all employees posted in the Matigara Base Workshop unit of NPCC Limited is not regular since 1998.  At the time of filing the application under RTI act by the petitioner on 16.03.2006, the payments of the Pay and Allowances in the unit was delayed by approximately two years. The petitioner and other fellow staffs of the unit were facing a difficult time and acute financial crisis. They were also unable to pay proper attention to their families because of the financial hardships. The medical needs of the families were also affected. The education of the children of these staffs were also affected adversely because they were not in a position to pay the appropriate fees to guarantee quality education and also to spend on the books and other requirements of their wards. The staffs of the unit were facing a tremendous hardship even to meet their daily needs. In this context and in desperation, the petitioner filed the application under RTI Act and sought the copy of the rules regarding the payment of salary and wages to the employees of the NPCC Limited employed in field units.

11.    That the old rules, which was supposedly implemented in 1957 was replaced by new rules in 1964 and the payment of the staff of the NPCC Limited in the field units are governed by the new rules. The Standing Order No 43 supposedly passed in 1964 directed as following:

“2.    Due to the alround increase in the in the activities of the corporation and consequent increase in the number of the officers and staff in the field units, it has been decided that the monthly bills for the pay and allowances of all regular establishment in the field units whether under Construction Superintendent or an Executive Engineer with effect from the pay for the month of April 1964 payable on the 1st May 1964 will be drawn and disbursed by the Unit Account Officers. The detailed instructions in this regard are attached which should be followed rigidly.”

The said standing order also encloses the Rules for the Drawal and Disbursement of Pay and Allowances of the Staff attached to the Field Units. In these rules, Rule 7 reads as under:

“Rule 7: Bills for monthly pay and fixed allowances of the corporation employees may be signed at any time on the last working day of the month in respect of which such pay and allowances are earned and shall be due for payment on the next working day of the month following”

Copy of the said standing order and the rule is annexed along with Annexure P-9 at pages 28 to 39 in the original writ petition.

12.    That it is evident from the said standing order and the rules that the salary of staff posted in the field units are to be paid on the first working day of the coming month by the Drawing and Disbursing Officer of the field units. But since 1998, the payment of salary and allowances in the Matigara Base Workshop Unit is not regular.

13.    That the petitioner has also filed two more applications under RTI Act in NPCC Limited on 17.02.2006 and on 16.03.2006. In the first application petitioner sought the details with respect to transfer policy of NPCC Limited. The petitioner sought the rules related to payment of Leave Travel Concession (LTC) advance and its recovery thereof. In the first case related to the transfer policy, the petitioner got the information very late and therefore the Central Information Commission (Respondent no. 1) vide its order dated 07.11.2006 issued notices to the Public Information Officer (respondent no. 2) o show cause as to why he not penalised under section 20(1) of the RTI Act and also cases as well, the Central Information Commission also issued notice to the Appellate Authority (Respondent no. 3 and Respondent no. 5) as to why the compensation should not be paid to the petitioner. With respect to the second application filed by the petitioner, respondent no. 1 ordered vide its order dated 18.12.2006 the respondent no. 2 to provide the information. Respondent no. 1 also issued notices to the Respondent no. 2 for penalty to be imposed on him and to Respondent no. 3 and Respondent no. 5 for the compensation to be paid to the petitioner. Petitioner did not get the information in the second application so far nor did he get any compensation so far. Respondent no. 1, in the same fashion, closed these files as well. Petitioner intends to file separate writs in these two cases in this Hon’ble Court very soon.

14.    That the petitioner would like to draw the attention of this Hon’ble Court to Section 6(2) of the RTI Act which provides that the applicant making request shall not be required to give any reason for requesting the information. The relevant part of Section 6 is as under:

“Section 6 (2):    An applicant making request for information shall not be required to give any reason for requesting the information or any other personal details except those that may be necessary for contacting him.”

15.    That I have read the contents of the above affidavit and I have understood the same and signed thereafter.

DEPONENT
VERIFICATION

I, the deponent above named, do hereby verify the contents of the above affidavit are true to the best of my knowledge, no part of it is false and nothing material has been concealed therefrom.
Verified at New Delhi on         day of September of the year 2007.

DEPONENT