ICO rules that requests relating to misconduct in public office by Jas Athwal and others are not vexatious

 The Information Commissioners Office have issued their decision notice today which is available at

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TDwgkx52vvOKJWf2P2cZcSLnY9B57fFf/view?usp=sharing

"The Commissioner’s decision is that the requests are not vexatious and therefore the Council cannot rely on section 14(1) of FOIA to refuse these requests."

The requests seek to discover whether misconduct in public office has taken place by Jas Athwal. Unfortunately, the ICO is yet to make a judgment on the substance of my requests. The vexatious point had to be dealt with as a preliminary issue. 

 

I argue this is a significant judgment because, if you agree that Labour are trying to bully me using unfair methods such as calling me vexatious, then it begs the question of what they doing behind the scenes in relation to their staff and residents. The final judgment on this could take years. However, if we campaign strongly enough on this we might be able to get a result sooner. 

 

I have an outstanding complaint with the standards committee about Cllr Rai's conduct regarding this case and I will write more about this in due course.

 

The request to Redbridge Council regarding Jas Athwal and the Don is still ongoing. 


This is video message to Cllr Kam Rai and Jas Athwal 




Where I say:



The campaign to investigate Jas Athwal moved a small step forward further today. This is because the Information Commissioner's office found that I was not vexatious in seeking documents to discover whether misconduct in public office has taken place.

It does mean that Redbridge Labour should publish their overdue decision about whether to proceed with an investigation into whether Councillor Rai, the Leader of Redbridge Council brought the Council into disrepute by failing to supply the name of Jas Athwal's managing agent and instead called me vexatious.

Should my request for an investigation pass the preliminary hurdle of being reasonable then Councillor Rai would face a hearing at the Town Hall

The best thing Jas Athwal and Kam Rai can do is full disclosure of documents regarding a potential misconduct in public office charge.

The very least they can do is name who Jas Athwal's managing agent was at the time the BBC story broke last year. Rachel Reeves named her managing agent recently when her agent took the blame for her not having a licence. Every other Redbridge landlord has to name who their managing agent is, why is Jas Athwal an exception?


There will be a further decision from the Information Commissioner Office about whether any documents should be disclosed in due course.









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