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Firdaus (Proprietor)     04 December 2015

Signing under false designation

Hello,

I filed an RTI Application addressed to PIO of a Public Authority (a school receiving 100% govt. grant). As per a State Education Board circular, only the school principal can hold the position as the PIO and a person in the general admin dept of the school can be appointed as the APIO. The FAA is the District Education Officer (DEO)

The RTI reply was signed by a school teacher under the designation of PIO. As the RTI reply didn't mention name & address of FAA, I sent my First Appeal to PIO titled "To, The FAA Under RTI Act, 2005, C/o The PIO" as well as to the DEO as at that point of time I wasn't sure who the FAA was.


In response, I receive two letters.

First letter is from the DEO (the real FAA), and his letter mentions the first appeal hearing date.
Second letter was from the school principal (who is authorised to be PIO of the school) on school's letter-head wherein, he has replied stating reasons why I'm not eligible to receive any information as requested and while this letter bears signature of the school principal, he has mentioned his designation as the FAA and also sent a "cc" of this letter to DEO ! 

To put these anomalies on record, before the First Appeal hearing date, I file further grounds of Appeal and further Prayers with the "real" FAA i.e. The DEO and attached the letter signed by the school principal under fake designation of his being the FAA.

At the First Appeal hearing with The DEO (the "real FAA"), the school teacher under whose signature the RTI reply was furnished to me was present. In the attendance sheet of the First Appeal hearing the school teacher writes his real name and puts his real signature but falsely mentions his designation as PIO.

Upon the school teacher being asked his designation by the DEO-FAA, he states that he is the APIO. Immediately, I bring this anomaly to the notice of FAA. I further drew his attention to the document written and signed by the school principal under false designation of FAA as well as pointed out to The DEO-FAA, that a copy of this letter has also being forwarded to him by the school principal !

I further request the DEO-FAA to take a serious note of this malafide act and recommend suitable disciplinary action against such false misrepresentation as this amounts to a criminal act.

The DEO-FAA declines stating that his job is only to inquire into whether requested information was provided to me to my satisfaction or not and pass appropriate orders directing the Public Authority to furnish the information not supplied to me and suggested that I should take up this issue with State CIC By filing a complaint.

Now my queries are as under :
(1) Is FAA under legal obligation to take such document on record and recommend for taking suitable disciplinary action against such misrepresentation by the school principal as it is apparent from record and mention the same in his First Appeal order ?
(2) under which Section of IPC would such false representation by the school principal become a punishable offence ? Falsely claiming to hold a "Quasi-Judicial" position of FAA appears to be a punishable offence to me as a layman.
(3) Is the State CIC empowered to send notice to police/Court to take cognisance of such an act of fraudulent misrepresentation and recommend for filing of FIR against school principal or would I have to file FIR ?



Learning

 1 Replies

B.N.Raja Mohamed (ADVOCATE)     06 December 2015

Sir,

The state information commisioner or the central information commissioner as the case may be has got wide powers to penalise the erring officers.


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