CIC Decision No. CIC/AT/A/2009/00378 Dt/ 26-06-2009- A Devastating Botch.
It is surprising that the I.C should demonstrate his total ignorance of a basic well settled law that stipulates that as soon as an article is given to the appropriate postal authority to be delivered to a particular addressee it becomes the property of the concerned addressee, pro-tempore held in trust by the postal authority on behalf of the custodian -addressee for the time being till it is delivered to him.(sic). Or was he feigning ignorance of this settled law only to save the otherwise indefensible P.I.O/AA of the public authority in this case recently decided by him under the Right to Information Act-2005 on 26-06-09.(And if it is so for what purpose?) I, for one, refuse to presume that an Authority as high as I.C could be so naïve as to not know what the stipulations of this well settled law, that falls well within the domain of common knowledge, are and that posting of any article through the agency of post office, ipso facto, implies its delivery to the addressee for all intents and purposes thereby making him the custodian of the document(s) posted to him.
Here is a case where the appellant had SPEED POSTED two Medical Reimbursement Bills SEPARATELY ON DIFFERENT DATES FROM DIFFERENT POST OFFICES to the same Public Authority and on their demand produced and submitted to them ‘THE PROOF OF THEIR DELIVERY” after obtaining the CERTIFICATE OF THEIR DELIVERY from the competent POSTAL AUTHORITY to the entire satisfaction of the CONCERNED Public authority and the addressee in this case. Yet the P.I.O feigns ignorance and states that those reimbursement claims were never received by the public authority and they hold no information regarding their processing. They take this stand in spite of the evidence from the postal authority to the contrary. The certificate issued by the competent postal authority clearly shows that the medical reimbursement claim documents sent by the Speed Post were duly delivered on due dates to the registry of the public authority. The copy of the above Postal evidence of delivery of the documents was also submitted to the Public authority on their demand, and twice to the I.C.(a) first with the Complaint dt.
Now even at the Complaint stage, it should have been possible for the I.C. to call for the certified copy of the pages of the dak registry register for scrutinizing the relevant entries of the dates of delivery of the two documents as indicated by the postal authorities in their certificate of delivery. These were denied to the applicant and obviously concealed by the Public authority lest the truth about their delivery to them should come out in the open to their great embarrassment and consternation.. The I.C willing, even now, it should be possible to get to the truth about their delivery in the first instance. Soon Mr.I.C will know that the representatives of the Public authority have taken him for a ride as much as they duped the Appellant by denying him the requested information provided, of course, he is interested in getting to the truth of the matter even now. It is not for nothing that the competent postal authority has certified the delivery of both the medical claims and documents to the addressee- Public authority and the certificate issued by the Postal authorities in this regard is after all not lying. It is the representatives of the Public Authority who have been lying all the way.. Does it not look eminently odd to you, Mr. I.C.Sir, that out of the two claims, sent from two different post offices on two different dates not a single one could be delivered to the addressee Public authority? And if it really does look odd to you, what prevented you from delving in the truth of the matter in the interests of justice and fair-play? The appellant does not assume( as you have stated) that the claims exist with the respondents; he is dead sure that they do and the Respondents are denying only because being in the denial mode absolves them of all their responsibilities, particularly when the I.C is willing to accommodate their blatant lies even though they do not stand either the scrutiny of the educed and produced evidence or the circumstances of the case. “Relying on lying” is the Mantra that has unfailingly assured them the safe escape route several times in the past as well. No reason for them to believe that will not work now.
The fact of the matter is that both these documents have been duly delivered to the public authority in due course as certified by the competent postal authorities, their entry also duly recorded by the registry of the public authority but the copies of the relevant portion of their recorded entries were not supplied either to the Appellant or to the I.C for the obvious reasons.
The P.I.O must have his very sound reasons to firmly believe that no harm will ever come to him whatever may be the gravity of the offense(s) he commits. And somehow, he is proving abundantly right in his secured beliefs as is evident from this and quite a few other such cases. Siding with the P.I.O( he can not do otherwise), the AA suggests that the Appellant should “bring copies of all relevant papers pertaining to the case/claim if available with him as these may help to resolve the case”. Does he not know that in medical reimbursement case all the papers most of them in original duly verified by the treating medical doctor, original cash memos duly verified , Certificate A signed by the treating medical officer all are required to be submitted with the claim in one go, so “what (other) relevant papers with the appellant” he is talking about.? Instead of going through the few entries on and after the dates of the receipt of the documents as indicated in the certificate of the Postal authority, certificate of their delivery, in the Registry’s dak register, he makes wild and meaningless suggestions; just to shift the onus on to the appellant. And instead of calling the bluff of the AA, the I.C himself joins him by making similar suggestions eschewing the obvious course of action in such circumstances i.e. to educe the truth of the matter and locate the documents in the office of the Public authority.
This could be done even now, only if the I.C. is interested in getting to the truth of the matter. Instead, even after all these abundantly clear indications of the malafide intentions and ulterior motives of the representatives of the Public authority, he suggests that the appellant should have wasted his time, money and energy going on a wild goose chase in the office of the Public authority, only to return totally disgusted, disgruntled and disappointed- a distraught person.
Further, he considers it “eminently reasonable that appellant provides to the respondents a fresh set of documents relating to his medical reimbursement claim”. Can he tell him from where he should get them (from Respondent’s office?)
Entries of the receipt in the Medical claims in the records of the Public Authority’s registry ought to have been scanned, in the first instance, immediately on the receipt of the request of the Appellant. With the needful done at appropriate time, the claims submitted by him more than a year ago, would have been settled long back by now. But who cares? With the I.C. thus solidly backing them where is the need for doing the needful even now?
A team member has rightly observed: “There is something more than what meets the eyes”
What line of action should the appellant now take- Any suggestions? I know of a similar case, where Hon’ble Delhi High Court granted total reimbursement of the Medical claim to the claimant in the similar circumstances, but then not everybody has got that kind of money, energy and time to spend in agitating the law at that stage.
- SANJOG MAHESHWARI
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