Receipt & book numbers a must, CIC tells City Police

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Feb 15: The Chief Information Commissioner, Assam has directed the Police Commissioner to ensure that the receipt issued by City Police should contain both receipt and book numbers regarding hearing an appeal where Rs. 500 was realized from one Bipin Chandra Thakuria by Guwahati City Police as fine through receipt No. 59555444 on June 6, 2016. The receipt was issued by Inspector of Police (Traffic), Chandmari region.  Thakuria sought for a copy of the Treasury challan from the SPIO of Commissionerate of Police through which the amount paid by him was deposited. The SPIO furnished a copy of Treasury challan and informed him that the amount collected from Thakuria was deposited into the Treasury vide challan No. 6/13303 on June 30, 2016, including the amount collected from some other persons through receipt book No. 59556.

However, the receipt No. 59555444 issued by the Inspector of Police (Traffic) to Thakuria does not contain the book number. He, therefore, preferred an appeal before the First Appellate Authority to furnish him the copies of all pages of receipt Book No. 59556. Being aggrieved with the order of the first Appellate Authority, Thakuria preferred second appeal before the Assam Information Commission.

By an order on February 2, 2017, Chief Information Commissioner Himangshu Sekhar Das directed the SPIO of the Commissionerate of Police to allow Thakuria to inspect all the pages of the receipt Book No. 59556 to confirm himself that the receipt issued to him was from this receipt book as informed by the SPIO. The State Chief information Commissioner, further, directed the Commissioner of Police, Guwahati city to ensure that the book number is invariably mentioned on the receipts and the space provided for it in the receipt is not left blank.