TSIC imposes penalty on TBSE Secretary

Agartala, Jul 16: The Tripura State Information Commission(TSIC) today imposed penalty of Rs 10,000 on the Secretary and Public Information Officer (PIO) of Tripura Board of Secondary Education (TBSE).

The Commission also directed him to deposit the money within next month and provide the evaluated answer sheets to the applicants within next two weeks.

Reportedly, one Somasree Choudhury of Agartala, who had secured third position in the Higher Secondary examination in 2007, applied for the copies of answer scripts and tabulation sheets of Bengali, Mathematics and Biology to the TBSE under the RTI Act, 2005, but the PIO had refused to provide the information.

She had sought justice in the TSIC and subsequently the commission directed TBSE authorities several times to provide her the information, as evaluated answer scripts and tabulation sheets were personal information of a particular student and students had the absolute right to inspect it but TBSE did not comply with the order.

Finally, the commission imposed penalty on the PIO and criticised the authorities while underlining that for the sake of transparency and fairness of the examination process as well as to ensure accountability of the stakeholders, the board must disclose the entire information to the examinee on demand.

Justifying the TSIC's directive State Information Commissioner D K Daschoudhury said the inspection of answer scripts by the examinee would be beneficial for both the teachers and students as they could become aware of the lapses and mistakes committed in the examinations.

UNI