Information seeker Chandan Pandit was misbehaved by Ward Chair on 29 August in Janakpur, Dhanusha ,a district in southern plains of Province 2, Nepal.
According to the Freedom Forum's representative, Rajan Kumar Singh, ward chair of Bhandai Rural Municiplity -2, Amit Kumar Yadhav misbehaved and slapped Pandit for seeking information about the irregularities in development works of that ward.
On 29 August, Pandit reached ward office to file RTI seeking information about the budget, monitoring and evaluation of road construction but administrative officer Subhod Thakur did not register his application.
While Pandit was returning home, ward chair Yadhav came in his way and seize the application saying, ‘what about this application is?’ Immediately after reading the application Yadhav misbehaved and slapped to Pandit.
Freedom Forum has serious concern over the incident. The constitution guarantees, RTI as a fundamental right and a separate RTI Act 2064 explicitly mention that all citizen has the right to file RTI request for seeking information from any public agencies. Attack upon the citizen/ information seeker merely for his/ her RTI request and denying information is the violation of RTI Act- the violation of citizen's fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution. Denying information is also a maneuver to keep secret the irregularities. Hence, FF strongly urges the Rural Municipality Office to provide the information and respect citizen's right.
For More Informtion
Thapathali, Kathmandu
Post Box No: 24292
Phone No. 4102030, 4102022
Website: www.nepalpressfreedom.org; www.freedomforum.org.np
Email: monitoring@freedomforum.org.np; info@freedomforum.org.np;