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Uttarakhand High Court · body

2014 DIGILAW 593 (UTT)

Charanjeet Kaur v. State Information Commission

2014-12-17

ALOK SINGH

body2014
JUDGMENT Alok Singh, J. 1. Present petition is filed assailing the judgment and order dated 15.10.2012, passed by the State Information Commission whereby penalty of Rs.25,000/- was imposed on the petitioner. 2. As mentioned in paragraph No.5 of the impugned order, respondent No.3 sought five information vide letter dated 07.04.2012 and those informations were supplied to the respondent No.3 on 19.09.2012. 3. Respondent No.3 himself requested the State Information Commission that since he has received the informations sought, therefore, he did not intend to pursue his second appeal. State Information Commissioner too in paragraph No.10 of the impugned order admitted that such request was made by respondent No.3 herein. 4. Section 20 of the Right to Information Act reads as under :- “(1) Where the Central Information Commission or the State Information commission, as the case may be, at the time of deciding any complaint or appeal is of the opinion that the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, has, without any reasonable cause, refused to receive an application for information or has not furnished information within the time specified under sub-section (1) of Section 7 or malafidely denied the request for information or knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information or destroyed information which was the subject of the request or obstructed in any manner in furnishing the information, it shall impose a penalty of two hundred and fifty rupees each day till application is received or information is furnished, so however, the total amount of such penalty shall not exceed twenty-five thousand rupees: Provided that the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, shall be given a reasonable opportunity of being heard before any penalty is imposed on him: Provided further that the burden of proving that he acted reasonably and diligently shall be on the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as ase may be. (2) Where the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission, as the case may be, at the time of deciding any complaint or appeal is of the opinion that the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, has, without any reasonable cause and persistently, failed to receive an application for information or has not furnished information within the time specified under sub-section (1) of Section 7 or malafidely denied the request for information or knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information or destroyed information which was the subject of the request or obstructed in any manner in furnishing the information, it shall recommend for disciplinary action against the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, under the service rules applicable to him.” 5. Perusal of sub-section (1) of Section 20 of the Act would demonstrate that penalty can be imposed against the Information Officer if he has refused to receive an application for information or has not furnished information within the time specified under sub-section (1) of Section 7 of the Act or malafidely denied the request for information or knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information or destroyed information. Sub-section (1) of Section 20 of the Act further demonstrates that for delayed information, penalty can be imposed if delay was caused without any reasonable cause. 6. Perusal of the impugned order would reveal that State Information Commission has not observed that information was supplied with delay without any reasonable cause. Therefore, sine qua non to impose the penalty is missing in the impugned order. 7. There is another aspect of the matter. If appellant himself makes request to withdraw the appeal in view of the fact that information sought have already been supplied to him, Appellate Authority has absolutely no other option except to dismiss the appeal as withdrawn and in that event, appellate authority should not proceed with the appeal imposing the cost against the Information Officer. 8. Consequently, impugned order does not sustain in the eyes of law. Therefore, writ petition is allowed. Impugned order is hereby quashed.