'Officers Not Posted In Dept During RTI Response Period Cannot Be Penalised For Delayed Disclosure': Chhattisgarh High Court
The Chhattisgarh High Court has quashed a ₹25,000 penalty imposed under the Right to Information Act on two Tahsildars who were not posted at the concerned Tahsil when the RTI application and first appeal were filed. The Court held that no liability could be fastened upon the petitioners as they were not posted at Dhamdha when the information was sought and the State Information Commission had also failed to consider their replies.
Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad was hearing a writ petition filed challenging the April 19, 2021 order of the Chhattisgarh State Information Commission imposing a penalty and directing initiation of disciplinary proceedings against the petitioners under Section 20(2) of the RTI Act.
The RTI application was filed by Govind Patel on June 18, 2018 before the then Tahsildar-cum-Public Information Officer, seeking information regarding the condition of ponds and encroachments within the Nagar Panchayat, Dhamdha. After the information was not supplied within 30 days, he filed a first appeal and approached the State Information Commission, which then passed the impugned order.
The petitioners contended that they could not be held responsible for non-supply of information during a period when they were not posted as Public Information Officers at Dhamdha. They also submitted that the RTI application itself was vague and that they had in fact filed their replies before the Information Commission, contrary to the finding in the impugned order.
The respondents supported the Commission's order but fairly submitted that the petitioners had, in fact, submitted their respective replies, which had subsequently been traced in another file.
The Court found that the petitioners had duly submitted their replies and that the Commission's finding that they had not done so was not borne out from the record. It further held that since the petitioners were not posted at the relevant time when the RTI application was filed, no liability could be fastened upon them.
“… the petitioners were not posted at the relevant point of time when the application seeking information was filed under RTI, as such no liability can be fastened upon the petitioners,” the Court observed.
The Court also noted that the information sought in the RTI application was vague and lacked the necessary particulars to clearly identify the precise information sought, an aspect which the State Information Commission had not considered while imposing the penalty. Document 1dfd17d4-2215-424b-a77…
Accordingly, the Court allowed the writ petition and quashed the April 19, 2021 order of the Chhattisgarh State Information Commission insofar as it imposed the ₹25,000 penalty on the petitioners.
Case Title: Smt. Hemlata Dahariya & Anr. v. Chhattisgarh State Information Commission & Ors. [WPC No. 3306 of 2021]