Puducherry: Road 'corruption' file goes missing, CIC flags delay in probe as attempt to cover tracks

New Delhi, Jul 14 (PTI) The vanishing of a book on alleged road corruption and a yearlong delay in starting a probe into its disappearance has prompted the Central Information Commission (CIC) to observe that the delay was "cultivated" to allow interested parties to cover their tracks and it "cannot lightly be dismissed." Information Commissioner P R Ramesh pulled up the Yanam Municipality in Puducherry over the disappearance of M-Book No 667, an official engineering record relating to a road project which alleged Rs 8 lakh in corruption. Calling the episode "not mere administrative lapse, but a pattern of institutional apathy that strikes at the very root of public accountability," the commission directed the municipality to complete a time-bound inquiry, identify the officials responsible for the missing record, explain the delay in initiating the probe and disclose the inquiry report under the RTI Act. The case reached the commission after an RTI applicant sought details about the whereabouts of M-Book No 667, the official responsible for its custody and whether a police complaint had been lodged. According to the municipality, the then assistant engineer handed over a list of M-Books in July 2023, but three of them, including M-Book No 667, were found missing during verification. Officials initially believed the record had been sent to the Department of Accounts and Treasuries (DAT) for processing work bills, but its whereabouts could not be established. After repeated efforts to trace the document failed, a police complaint was lodged in February 2025. However, a departmental inquiry committee was constituted only in February 2026. During the hearing, the appellant alleged the missing M-Book was a crucial piece of evidence that may have been intentionally destroyed to shield those responsible. The municipality, on the other hand, informed the commission that a police complaint had been filed and a departmental inquiry was underway. The commission noted that the Yanam Police, in its report dated March 11, 2025, concluded that M-Books were required to be maintained and handed over by authorised officials and that the failure to do so reflected negligence on the part of those responsible for their custody. Yet, despite the police findings, the municipality waited more than a year before constituting an inquiry committee. "This commission finds this hiatus of over twelve months neither explained nor explicable," the order said, adding that prompt administrative action should ordinarily have followed to fix accountability and ascertain what had become of a record concerning the award of government contracts. Observing that the disappearance of such a document was "not a matter of clerical inconvenience", the commission said it directly impaired citizens' right to know how public money was spent and contracts were awarded. "Where such a document goes missing and the administrative response is one of prolonged silence, the inference of mala fides becomes difficult to resist, and the suspicion that the delay itself was cultivated to allow interested parties to cover their tracks cannot lightly be dismissed," it said. The CIC directed the inquiry committee to complete its probe in a time-bound manner, and disclose the identity of the officials in whose custody the record was last traceable. It also asked it to explain the delay through a reasoned affidavit and share the final report with the appellant while proactively publishing it under Section 4 of the RTI Act. PTI MHS VN VN