5 years on, conductor wins RTI ticket out of suspension
Flying Squad Issued Memo After Mistake By Passenger
Ram.Sundaram@timesgroup.com 07.03.2018
Chennai: The job involves riding buses by a timetable that the depot boss sets, but this government bus conductor would rather have not been on one particular ride five years ago.
Wrongly suspended and his increments docked after a passenger produced a ticket that M Mohammed Ali had not issued to a flying squad, the conductor finally found a route out of his troubles via an RTI appeal, leading to a recall to his job.
Three years after he was suspended, Ali, a conductor in Coimbatore, filed an RTI petition for documents to prove that he was not at fault. When the petition failed to evoke any response from the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC), he approached the Tamil Nadu Information Commission, which on Monday passed an order in his favour and fined the public information officer (PIO) ₹2,000 for not furnishing the documents.
Ali, who is in his mid-forties and had to borrow money to look after his family after his suspension, told TOI that he had issued tickets to passengers heading from Gandhipuram Bus Stand, Coimbatore to Kovilpalayam on May 28 2013.
Aticket checking squad got on the bus midway through the 18km trip and asked the 60 passengers aboard for their tickets. One of them inadvertently proffered a ₹4 ticket that he had purchased the previous day on another bus.
Without further ado, the squad issued Ali a memo. “I didn’t know what was happening and had to sign the memo,” he said. “I didn’t have a chance to explain myself because the bus had halted and the passengers were getting agitated.”
Officials suspended Ali and refused to give him two successive increments. Netaji Transport Workers Unions in July 2016 helped him file an RTI query for details of the ticket the passenger submitted to the squad.
When the PIO failed to reply for 20 months, Ali filed an appeal. The information commission last month ordered TNSTC to dispatch the data within a month and fined the PIO.
Data that TNSTC presented to the commission on Monday revealed that a different conductor, not Ali, on a different route, had issued the ticket aday earlier.
“There was no way that I could have issued the ticket,” Ali said. “But the officials framed charges against me instead of penalising the passenger.,”
Ali still has to prove that officials erroneously issued the memo to him before TNSTC officials restore his increments.
Flying Squad Issued Memo After Mistake By Passenger
Ram.Sundaram@timesgroup.com 07.03.2018
Chennai: The job involves riding buses by a timetable that the depot boss sets, but this government bus conductor would rather have not been on one particular ride five years ago.
Wrongly suspended and his increments docked after a passenger produced a ticket that M Mohammed Ali had not issued to a flying squad, the conductor finally found a route out of his troubles via an RTI appeal, leading to a recall to his job.
Three years after he was suspended, Ali, a conductor in Coimbatore, filed an RTI petition for documents to prove that he was not at fault. When the petition failed to evoke any response from the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC), he approached the Tamil Nadu Information Commission, which on Monday passed an order in his favour and fined the public information officer (PIO) ₹2,000 for not furnishing the documents.
Ali, who is in his mid-forties and had to borrow money to look after his family after his suspension, told TOI that he had issued tickets to passengers heading from Gandhipuram Bus Stand, Coimbatore to Kovilpalayam on May 28 2013.
Aticket checking squad got on the bus midway through the 18km trip and asked the 60 passengers aboard for their tickets. One of them inadvertently proffered a ₹4 ticket that he had purchased the previous day on another bus.
Without further ado, the squad issued Ali a memo. “I didn’t know what was happening and had to sign the memo,” he said. “I didn’t have a chance to explain myself because the bus had halted and the passengers were getting agitated.”
Officials suspended Ali and refused to give him two successive increments. Netaji Transport Workers Unions in July 2016 helped him file an RTI query for details of the ticket the passenger submitted to the squad.
When the PIO failed to reply for 20 months, Ali filed an appeal. The information commission last month ordered TNSTC to dispatch the data within a month and fined the PIO.
Data that TNSTC presented to the commission on Monday revealed that a different conductor, not Ali, on a different route, had issued the ticket aday earlier.
“There was no way that I could have issued the ticket,” Ali said. “But the officials framed charges against me instead of penalising the passenger.,”
Ali still has to prove that officials erroneously issued the memo to him before TNSTC officials restore his increments.
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