RTI aids decade-long quest for justice

Her existence was suppressed before the sale of an ancestral property

: A woman whose very existence was suppressed in the legal heirship certificate by her siblings, who disposed of an ancestral property without her knowledge after their father’s death, is now hoping that after her decade-long battle, justice would finally be served.

But for her unrelenting pursuit and effective use of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, V. Santha of Pudukottai district would not have been able to access documents, which would now enable her to stake a claim to a share of the property.

In the early 1990s Ms. Santha’s father passed away. Years later, she came to know that her brothers had disposed of family properties without her knowledge.

This set her on a mission to procure documents from the Registration and Revenue departments. After getting a copy of a registered deed about the sale of her father’s property, she approached the Taluk Office in Pudukottai, seeking a copy of the death certificate and legal heirship certificate.

No information

However, the Taluk office refused to part with the information, stating that the petitioner should approach the Registrar for the death certificate and that the legal heirship certificate could not be provided since the file number with which it was issued was not known.

Ms. Santha then moved the Tamil Nadu State Information Commission.

To prove the sale of the property in question, the petitioner produced a document registered in 2005, which she had already obtained from the Registration department.

According to the sale deed, her brothers had sold the property stating that it was ancestral property acquired by them by inheritance.

Ms. Santha contended that the property would not have been disposed of without a legal heirship certificate as the property was claimed to have been inherited upon the death of their father.

The Public Information Officer took the stand that in the absence of the file number or some other form of detail, the legal heirship certificate could not be located. However, on the direction of the Commission, the PIO produced the relevant documents at the next hearing.

A scrutiny of the documents revealed a legal heirship certificate issued in 2013, showing the petitioner’s brothers and the children of one of her brothers who died later as the only legal heirs, and certifying that there was no other heir, thereby suppressing the existence of the petitioner.

Considering the hardship caused to the petitioner, State Chief Information Commissioner K. Ramanujam, who heard the case, ordered that compensation to the tune of ₹4,000 be paid to her by the department. The Commission further directed that an officer, not below the rank of RDO, be asked to inquire into the matter.