Chandigarh (Sanjay Kumar Mishra)

The mandate of the Haryana Right to Service Commission is to ensure that no citizen is harassed in availing any benefit of the notified service from Government offices and also to ensure the delivery of the service in a time bound manner.

The commission is stringent against the officers who are lax in their approach towards work. Recently, in a case Haryana Right to Service Commission imposed a penalty of Rs. 20,000/- on Dy Civil Surgeon Rohtak, Dr. KL Malik for delaying a case of release of death certificate of a deceased person who had expired in 1994 on a flimsy ground that proof of death was not available. The hapless widow of the deceased had applied for grant of death certificate of her husband.

Giving information in this regard, Secretary to the Commission, Ms. Meenaxee Raj said that a long pending issue of a harassed widow was finally resolved through the intervention of the Commission. She added that though the record pertaining to deaths was lost and destroyed in 1995, a fact which was also agreed by the Chief Commissioner HRTSC himself who incidentally was DC Bhiwani at that time.

Extreme and abject case of absolute non application of mind by the concerned doctor has led to imposition of maximum penalty as well as compensation in the case. He added that the Commission has also directed the Dy Civil Surgeon Rohtak, Dr. KL Malik to directly pay Rs. 5000/- as compensation to the complainant. Sh. TC Gupta said that the Commission will not spare any officer concerned who does not respect the applicant’s valuable time and is not committed to perform task on time.

An enquiry had been made into the factum of death of the deceased by Medical Officer, Government Hospital Meham, Dr. Anand Prakash, who recommended the case for registration to Dy Civil Surgeon, Rohtak. She said that the enquiry was based on statements of Aanganwadi workers who had made further enquiries with the villagers regarding the death of the deceased which was also affirmed by the villagers.

Despite Aanganawadi workers’ reports, clear recommendation by Dr. Anand Prakash to register the death of the deceased person, the designated officer wrongfully rejected the case claiming the lack of supporting documents to process the case.

She further added that even during the hearing before the Chief Commissioner, HRTSC, pursuant to the Suo Moto notice served upon him based on the complaint made by the widow of the deceased, the respondent doctor kept harping upon absence of proof of death. He had no realisation that once a person is dead, his or her death certificate could be the only proof of death. Considering the applicant as senior citizen still the concerned authority had not been kind to cooperate with the matter.

While interacting with the medipersons, Chief Commissioner HRTSC, Sh. TC Gupta, said that this by far was the most painful case witnessed by him where the system has turned so apathetic that a hapless poor widow who has already lost her husband is made to run from pillar to post to be able to get a death certificate.

Extreme and abject case of absolute non application of mind by the concerned doctor has led to imposition of maximum penalty as well as compensation in the case. He added that the Commission has also directed the Dy Civil Surgeon Rohtak, Dr. KL Malik to directly pay Rs. 5000/- as compensation to the complainant. Sh. TC Gupta said that the Commission will not spare any officer concerned who does not respect the applicant’s valuable time and is not committed to perform task on time.

He further added that due to the Commission’s strict approach the delivery of the services have now been accelerated at a faster pace in all the departments which is the ultimate mandate of the Commission.