J&k Medical officer gets two year jail term for filing false RTI applications

Srinagar: A court in Srinagar has convicted a medical officer from Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM) of two years of imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 under Section 419 and 471 of the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) for committing fraud by impersonating someone else and submitting a forged document as genuine while filing a right to information (RTI) application.  

Regarding the failure to pay the fine by the doctor, the court imposed an additional 6 months of imprisonment in case of non-payment of the fine. The accused doctor of Jammu and Kashmir was convicted by the Court of 2nd Additional Munsiff Ahtzaz Ahmed on Tuesday for filing an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act in the name of another person and using it as a ‘genuine’ document.

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On October 30, 2013, a complaint was filed by then Director ISM that a medical officer was transferred to Udhampur in Jammu division for misconduct and harassment and the accused was harassing the officials of the department by filing multiple RTI applications, UNI reports. It was alleged that the accused was using different names so that he could escape from the departmental enquiry and could put pressure on officers of the Department.