RTI exposes ‘fake records’ of Pernambut Municipality staff

The incident happened when social activist, Suresh Kumar, was informed that, S Nagarathinam, a temporary employee was given the contract to maintain the pay & use toilet inside the town bus stand. As rules state that no official — permanent or temporary — can take up contract work, Suresh Kumar filed an RTI to know whether S Nagarathinam was a civic employee.

The local body, in it reply, mentioned that there was no municipal employee named S Nagarathinam on its rolls.

Taken aback by this blatant lie, Suresh Kumar used his contacts to get the EPF records, which showed that the local body had made remittances in Nagarathinam’s name.

Angered by officials withholding the truth, Suresh sent a detailed letter to the Chennai-based Chief Information Officer (CIO) demanding action against municipal officials for lying while also issuing legal notices to the Pernambut Municipal Commissioner and its office manager, who is the public information officer for the municipality.

When asked why he was reacting after a long time, when the local body had replied to his queries in April, Suresh Kumar said, “The pandemic-related lockdown resulted in movement restrictions and also non-availability of officials, who were all involved in COVID-19 activities. As restrictions have been lifted and officials are also available, I undertook the follow-up on the issue.” 

The Pernambut bus stand retrieval committee proposes to issue legal notices to the Municipal Commissioner, Municipal Engineer and Town Planning Inspector over unauthorised construction of a bus shelter and toilets at the site donated to the local body in Sathgar panchayat limits, committee president G Suresh Kumar told DT Next on Thursday. Stating that notice would also be issued to Vellore Collector, who said he was ignorant of the construction taking place despite the commissioner stating at Wednesday’s meeting he had informed both the Collector and the Vellore-based RDMA. Kumar said he would also move Madras High Court seeking an interim injunction against the construction and operation of the controversial bus stand at Sathgar.