Samuel Merigala By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Pallavaram municipality has revealed the identity of an RTI petitioner to the real estate company on whose construction project he sought details on. More shockingly, the senior officials of the company, along with local politicians, allegedly visited David Manohar’s house on Sunday “requesting” him to withdraw petition.

Manohar, a civic activist, had on July 22 filed the RTI application seeking details like the setback area and number of inspections conducted at an under-construction residential building in Chrompet. Even after 51 days, the details were not given to Manohar by the municipality and he filed a petition to the municipality’s commissioner K Shivakumar, who is the appellant authority.

But instead of giving the petitioner the information, the municipality’s Public Information Officer G Sivakumar on August 21 wrote a letter (copy of which seen by Express) to the construction company saying Manohar had sought such details, besides seeking their permission for disclosure.

On October 6, Manohar said he received a letter from the municipality — backdated to August 21 — that the information he sought was regarding a third party and would be given only if the party gives consent.

However, what the municipality did not tell him is that an official from ­the construction company would be visiting him along with a local politician.

“I was about to have lunch on Sunday and both of them knocked on my door. For two hours they pleaded with me to retract my RTI,” Manohar said. K Shivakumar refused to talk to Express, saying, “Let them take action if we have done anything wrong,” he said. Revealing the identity of an RTI petitioner is a violation of TN Govt Servants Code of Conduct. P6