IN probably the first incident of its kind since the Right to Information Act came into force here, a lower-division clerk in the office of the Commissioner of Industries was nabbed by the CBI for seeking a Rs 500 bribe to process an RTI application.
The CBI nabbed the clerk, Anand Prakash Gupta, as he was accepting the bribe from a petitioner who alerted the agency after his attempts to file a plea were thwarted for almost a week. The complainant told officers that the clerk had been demanding Rs 500 to entertain the application instead of the mandatory Rs 10.
Gupta has been booked under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, and is presently in CBI custody.
The accused was defying the very spirit of the Right to Information Act, that is, speedy availability of information at a low cost, says the FIR registered by the agency. The office of the Commissioner, Industries is designated to accept RTI applications pertaining to the Industries Department of the Delhi government.
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