Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 11: Tension erupted on the civic body premises today as employees gheraoed a former colleague-turned-Right to Information (RTI) activist, accusing him of harassing them in the name of seeking information.

The matter was resolved after senior officers intervened and persuaded the employees to restrain from such acts. The employees alleged that the RTI activist, Binayak Rath, 65, a Pokhariput resident, had been targeting individuals in the name of seeking information.

Rath, however, said he had sought information regarding a matter involving three employees who had targeted him today.

Sources said the commotion started around 12.15pm with a few employees shouting at Rath near the corporation’s main entrance. Other employees and officials rushed to the spot. A health wing employee Suvadarshi Das was seen shouting at Rath while others also joined him.

Das said Rath had sought information about his educational qualification after he did not co-operate with him in an earlier case. “He is a former employee and we respect him. But, he used to harass us by issuing instruction to us. He used to seek information about the employee, who did not obey him, through the RTI to scare them. It was intimidating for us,” he said.

Das even said that as Rath had sought personal information about him, he refused to give such information according to the rules and the activist started argument with him.

They even alleged that Rath had been seeking information on regular basis affecting other activities of the corporation as the employees had to devote time to provide him information than attending to the regular works.

However, Rath said that if the employees were not ready to provide him information, they could have informed their senior officers or concerned information officers instead of targeting him.

“I was a head clerk in the corporation, and I am aware of many wrong doings of the corporation. I seek information to check corruption and many staff have got their long pending dues after my RTI applications. But, some employees could not tolerate this and verbally attacked him,” said Rath, adding that if he would face any resistance from the employees in the future, he would complain to officials concerned.

Additional commissioner of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and first appellate authority for the RTI K.P. Pati, who convinced the employees not to create a scene in office hours, said there were legal constraints.