Tehsildar doesn’t obey DM, Sub-Collector orders
One Sunita Mishra, widow of Ananta Kumar Mishra of Bhanagaon village under Chandol Gram Panchayat in Derabish block, has been moving from pillar to post for the last three years to get a legal heir certificate.
According to Sunita, while she was working at a Cuttack-based private hospital she had married to Ananta. But the family members did not accept her act as it was a love marriage. Ever since rejected by kin, they had been staying at Cuttack in a rented house. later they were blessed with a child.
However, as ill luck would have it, Ananta died untimely in a road mishap on July 12, 2012.Though later widow Sunita applied before the local tehsildar for a legal heir certificate, but in vain. Sunita alleged that she had applied several times to get the certificate, but it was rejected by the Derabish Tehsildar. She termed it as sheer apathy and step motherly attitude.
As per the statute of the Orissa Rights to Public Delivery Act, a Tehsil should provide legal heir certificate within 30 working days, but in case of Sunita, it was not done. Sunita said she brought her sorry plight before the notice of the district Collector on last May. later, the district administration directed the Tehsildar to provide the certificate to Sunita after conducting an enquiry. However, the local tehsil office once again rejected her claim. Sunita also filed a case in the sub Collector’s court seeking justice and even after the court directed the Tehsildar to issue the certificate, the latter failed to do so. Meanwhile, Sunita has decided to stage an agitation in front of the district collectorate office.
When contacted, Derabish tehsildar Sumitra Pattnaik informed that she had made an enquiry of the case. “I asked petitioner Sunita to produce her marriage certificate, but she failed. So I rejected her claim,” she said.
Here the question is, when the district Collector and Sub Collector–cum-Sub Divisional Magistrate by cross checking the documents submitted by the widow, have directed the Tehsildar of Derabish to provide the certificate, why the Tehsildar is harassing herIJ