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2016 DIGILAW 3242 (ALL)

DINESH PAL VERMA v. STATE OF U. P.

2016-09-22

A.P.SAHI, VIJAY LAKSHMI

body2016
JUDGMENT By the Court.—Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Shikhar Anand for the State Information Commission. 2. The petitioner is an Executive Engineer from whom, the respondent No. 4 is alleged to have sought certain information in respect of the tenure of one Sri Gopal Gupta Assistant Engineer, as is evident from the information sought vide letter dated 8.6.2011, a copy whereof, is Annexure 5. 3. The petitioner states that in response thereto, the petitioner had got the entire compilation made available and for that a letter was sent to the petitioner on 4.7.2011 and again on 4.8.2011 informing the petitioner that in spite of the demand made in the estimate since the requisite fee was not deposited, the information which was already available, could not be tendered to the petitioner as per Rules. Secondly the letter that were sent had been returned with endorsements of not-availability of the respondent No. 4. 4. The respondent No. 4 appears to have approached the Chief Information Commission by filing an appeal on account of non-receipt of information and an order was passed on 28.1.2014 imposing a penalty of Rs. 25,000/- on the petitioner for having not supplied the information to the petitioner. 5. The petitioner contends that the aforesaid proceeding went on ex parte and, therefore, the petitioner moved an application dated 8.4.2016 for recall stating therein the entire explanation a copy whereof is Annexure-9 to the writ petition. This recall application has been rejected by the order dated 4.12.2015 and as a result whereof, the recovery is now sought to be made of the fine imposed under the order dated 8.1.2016 and 5.5.2016. The petitioner contends that there was absolutely no fault on the part of the petitioner and as a matter of fact if the respondent No. 4 only wanted the gist of the information, he could have responded to the estimate given to him for deposit of the requisite fee so as to reduce his burden accordingly. It is urged that the respondent No. 4 did not undertake any such steps and the letters sent to him were returned with an endorsement that the addressee was not available on the said address. 6. It is urged that the respondent No. 4 did not undertake any such steps and the letters sent to him were returned with an endorsement that the addressee was not available on the said address. 6. Learned counsel submits that all these facts were brought on record through the recall application but the State Information Commission without considering the same, proceeded to pass the impugned order and has saddled the petitioner with a recovery which could not be justifiably realized from the petitioner. 7. We have considered the submissions raised and what we find is that the petitioner’s contention contained in the recall application having nowhere been considered while rejecting the same, vide order dated 4.12.2015, the consequential action of recovery is vitiated. The State Information Commission ought to have considered the same before passing the orders. Accordingly, the order dated 4.12.2015 contained in Annexure 2 to the writ petition, the recovery notice dated 8.1.2016 and the consequential intimation dated 5.5.2016 are hereby quashed. It shall be open to the State Information Commission to pass appropriate orders in accordance with law keeping in view the observations made hereinabove after putting the respondent No. 4 to notice. 8. The writ petition is accordingly allowed.