Balbir Aggarwal v. State Information Commissioner, Punjab & Ors.

CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR. Present: Mr.H.C.Arora, Advocate, for the petitioner. **** M EHINDER S INGH S ULLAR , J.(oral) Concisely, the facts, which need a necessary mention for the limited purpose of deciding the sole controversy, involved in the instant writ petition and emanating from the record, are that the petitioner moved an application dated

01.12.2010(Annexure P-4) to the State Public Information Officer(respondent No.2) (for brevity “the SPIO”) and sought information mentioned therein, with regard to various irregularities, which were stated to have been committed by the Management of Dr.B.L.Kapur Memorial Hospital, Ludhiana, invoking the provisions of The Right to Information Act, 2005(hereinafter to be referred as “the Act”). As, the information was not supplied, therefore, the petitioner filed the appeal(Annexure P-5) before the first Appellate Authority, but in vain, which necessitated him to file the second appeal, which was disposed of by the State Information Commission, Punjab(respondent No.1) (for short “the SIC”), by virtue of impugned order dated 23.02.2011(Annexure P-7).

The petitioner still did not feel satisfied and preferred the instant writ petition, challenging the impugned order(Annexure P-7), invoking the provisions of Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India. Civil Writ Petition No.5577 of 2011 2

After hearing the learned counsel for the petitioner, going through the record with his valuable help and after considering the entire matter deeply, to my mind, there is no merit in the instant writ petition.

The solitary argument of the learned counsel that the adverse allegations incorporated in the impugned order(Annexure P-7) are frivolous, amenable to misuse and liable to be deleted, is not only devoid of merit but misplaced as well.

As is evident from the record that the SIC did not incorporate any such stricture/allegations against the petitioner in the impugned order dated

23.02.2011(Annexure P-7), which is in the following manner:- “Today Shri Naveen Kumar, Clerk, made a statement in this Court which comprises two copies, to the effect that Dr.B.L.Kapur Memorial Hospital, Ludhiana is a private society, which does not fall under the purview of Right to Information Act, 2005, and that it is not bound to give requisite information to the complainant. He also submitted a two-paged letter in this Court, according to which, Shri Balbir Aggarwal is misusing this Act, and his motive is to extort money from this society. He has also stated that he blackmails them and misuses the information after it is given to him. The information sought by him is exempted under section 8(d). This Court is of the understanding that “because Dr.B.L.Kapur Memorial Hospital, Ludhiana is a private organization, therefore, this information cannot be supplied to the complainant under the Right to Information Act,

2005.” Therefore, this case is closed. A copy of this order is being sent to both the parties.”

Meaning thereby, the perusal of the record would reveal that the SIC has only(simply) mentioned in its order that the opposite party has submitted the letter in the Court, according to which, the petitioner is misusing the provisions of the Act and his motive is to extort money from the society. Thus, it cannot possibly be termed as a stricture passed by the SIC. Moreover, as nothing adverse has been decided against the petitioner by the SIC, therefore, such impugned order cannot be set aside, as urged on behalf of the petitioner, in exercise of writ Civil Writ Petition No.5577 of 2011 3 jurisdiction of this Court, in the obtaining circumstances of the case.