'Apathy Of Highest Order': Orissa High Court Criticizes Arbitrary Dropping Of RTI Proceeding By Information Commission

The Orissa High Court has come down heavily on the State Information Commission (SIC) for its apathetic and arbitrary attitude in denying/dropping a plea made under the Right to Information Act ('RTI Act') way back in 2018.While highlighting the contradictory stand taken by the Commission in order to avoid providing information, the Bench of Justice V. Narasingh observed –“In the factual backdrop of the case at hand, this Court is constrained to observe that in rendering the impugned decision the State Information Commission allowed its finding to be entrapped in officialdom and red tapism, which are illegitimate tools to fall back, to deny response to an application under the RTI Act, 2005 and thereby render the provisions nugatory.”Briefly put, the petitioner, accompanied by his co-villagers, made a representation to the Chief Secretary, Government of Odisha on December 26, 2017, seeking to record a particular plot in government records and to direct eviction of alleged illegal encroachers from such land.After the lapse of a reasonable time, the petitioner made an application under the RTI Act to ascertain the status of his representation and as to whether any action has been taken in pursuance thereto. Since no information was provided to such plea, he preferred an appeal as per Section 19(1) of the RTI Act.On 12.12.2018, the petitioner was informed by the Public Information Officer (PIO), Bhadrak Tahasil that information sought by him is not available as per the submission of Dealing Assistant, Encroachment. Being aggrieved, the petitioner preferred a second appeal under Section 19(3). Surprisingly, the Law Officer of the SIC apprised that the questions raised by the petitioner have been complied 'point wise' and supplied in his favour by letter dated 12.12.2018.The matter was subsequently taken up by the SIC which took note of the letter dated 12.12.2018 and the joint affidavit submitted by the First Appellate Authority and the PIO, Bhadrak Tahasil regarding non-availability of the information as sought. Accordingly, the case was dropped, which has been impugned in this writ petition.The Court was baffled to note that though the PIO, Bhadrak Tahasil replied stating no representation was available at the encroachment section, the State as well as the SIC submitted that “point-wise reply” was furnished to the petitioner, the proof of which is not available on record. Thus, the Bench was astonished as to how the SIC claimed to have supplied information when it lacked the representation. It accordingly held –“Ex facie such stand of the State authorities is incongruous. Such patent contradictory stand escaped the scrutiny of the State Information Commission. In passing the impugned order, the State Information Commission mechanically accepted the stand of the State authorities, failing to take notice of the patent contradictions in their stand and also failed to appreciate that if such stand of the State authorities is accepted at their face value as in the case at hand without due scrutiny, right of a citizen to get information as codified by Act, 2005 would be a dead letter and it will set at naught the very purpose for which the Act has been enacted to contain corruption and to hold Government and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed.”Accordingly, the Court was of the view that the proceeding was dropped by non-application of mind. Therefore, while setting aside the impugned order, it remitted the matter back to the SIC for de novo hearing and disposal, preferably within 45 days.“The travail of the Petitioner reminds one of the plight of the protagonist “Josef” in Kafka's celebrated works “The Trial” where he faces nightmarish bureaucracy that seems designed to confuse,” the Court remarked.The Tahasildar, Bhadrak was ordered to pay a cost of Rs. 50,000/- (rupees fifty thousand) to the petitioner for the lackadaisical attitude resulting in rounds of avoidable litigation.Case Title: Hemanta Nayak v. State of Odisha & Ors.Case No: W.P.(C) No. 12399 of 2024Date of Judgment: October 09, 2025Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr. S. Mishra, AdvocateCounsel for the Respondents: Mr. C.R. Swain, Addl. Govt. Advocate for the State; Mr. B.K. Dash, Advocate for the SICCitation: 2025 LiveLaw (Ori) 127Click Here To Read/Download Order

'Apathy Of Highest Order': Orissa High Court Criticizes Arbitrary Dropping Of RTI Proceeding By Information Commission

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