HYDERABAD: North Zone DCP Rashmi Perumal, IPS, has lodged a complaint against retired DSP D Nelson, accusing him of misusing the Right to Information (RTI) Act by repeatedly filing similar applications, allegedly to harass police officers and disrupt official work.
According to the complaint, Nelson has submitted numerous RTI applications seeking the same details, despite the police department providing consistent replies through various authorised officials. The repeated queries, officials say, are creating administrative hurdles and impacting day-to-day operations.
“The tone and content of the petitions suggest a pattern aimed at harassing or pressuring officers in the performance of their lawful duties,” the complaint states.
The issue stems from an old case involving Nelson’s late son, Sachendra Anurag, who was denied renewal of his arms licence in 2016 due to his involvement in a criminal case in 2011. Nelson has been seeking copies of the non-renewed licence, a refund of the user fee paid for the renewal, and disciplinary action against officers he claims were negligent in the investigation of the case registered at Gopalapuram police station.
He named officers, including Sumathi, IPS; Kalmeshwar, IPS; and Chandana Deepti, IPS – all former North Zone DCPs – alleging lapses in handling the case.
In 2012, Anurag had filed an RTI seeking case-related information. The initial response stated that the case was “referred as false”, but it was later found that the investigation was incomplete. The case was reassigned, and disciplinary action was taken against several officers, including SI S Dileep Kumar for lapses in investigation, SI S Chandra Sekhar for incorrect RTI response, and then SHO T Radhesh Murali for supervisory failure.
Despite this, Nelson has continued filing RTI applications, often rewording old queries and including names of newly posted officers, demanding action against them as well.
The police have now registered a case against Nelson under Section 221 of the BNS.