Writ Petition No. 68 of 2010 · Uttarakhand High Court · 2012

1. Heard Mr. N.P. Sah, Advocate for the petitioners and Ms. Shruti Joshi, Advocate for respondent no. 2.

2. The petitioners before this Court are aggrieved by order dated 11.11.2009 (wrongly written as 11.11.2005 (Annexure 1 to the writ petition) by which the Chief Information Commissioner, Uttarakhand has partly allowed the second appeal of respondent no. 2 and has come to the conclusion that the information sought by respondent no. 2 from the public authority has been furnished after a delay of three months and accordingly ordered for a compensation of ‘5,000/- to be paid to respondent no. 2 by the public authority.

3. Brief facts of the case are that respondent no. 2 sought an information from the District Supply Officer, Almora seeking three informations as under :- 2 (1) As to how much ration is allotted to Government Intermediate College Raghulipeepal, Almora under the Mid-day meal scheme? (2) The date of initiation of said scheme in the institute and (3) What is the grade of rice made available to the institute under the said Mid-day Meal scheme?

4. Under Section 7 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, this information had to be furnished to respondent no. 2 within a period of 30 days. Since it was not done, respondent no. 2 straightway went the State Information Commission, which remitted back the matter to the First Appellate Authority as there was a first appellate authority constituted under the Right to Information Act. Subsequently, certain information was supplied to respondent no. 2 by the appellate authority. However, according to respondent no. 2, it was belated and not a sufficient information. Thereafter, respondent no. 2 moved a second appeal before the State Information Commission. The State Information Commission came to the conclusion that the first appellate authority has caused a delay furnishing the information to respondent no. 2 and therefore it has caused a loss of time and labour to respondent no. 2. Hence in order to compensate him, a compensation of ‘5,000/- was awarded to respondent no. 2 to be given by the appellate authority. It is this order by which the petitioners are presently aggrieved.

5. The only explanation given by the petitioner for causing the delay is that the District Supply Office in Almora was being shifted and this has caused the delay. 3 No detail of this shifting was given. The information was sought from the Public Information Officer as far back as on 20.2.2009 and it was only on 2.3.2009 the prescribed authority sought certain clarification from the office of Assistant Food Commissioner, Ranikhet and on 6.5.2009 certain information was given to respondent no. 2. There is no detail as to when the office was shifted and as to whether it was really a reason to cause delay in furnishing the information.

6. There is one more aspect of this issue which is that in fact the public authority had to furnish such an information to public in any case which is an obligation under Section 4 of the Right to Information Act. Section 4 of the Act reads as under :- (cid:147)4. Obligations of public authorities.-(I) Every public authority shall (cid:150) (a) maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and the form which facilitates the right to information under this Act and ensure that all records that are appropriate to be computerised are, within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerised and connected through a network all over the country on different systems so that access to such records is facilitated; (b) publish within one hundred and twenty days from the enactment of this Act,- (i) the particulars of its organisation, functions and duties; (ii) the powers and duties of its officers and employees; (iii) the procedure followed in the decision making process, including channels of supervision and accountability; (iv) the norms set by it for the discharge of its functions; (v) the rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions; (vi) a statement of the categories of documents that are held by it or under its control; (vii) the particulars of any arrangement that exists for consultation with, or representation by, the members of the public in relation to the formulation of its policy or implementation thereof; 4 including (viii) a statement of the boards, councils, committees and other bodies consisting of two or more persons constituted as its part or for the purpose of its advice, and as to whether meetings of those boards, councils, committees and other bodies are open to the public, or the minutes of such meetings are accessible for public; (ix) a directory of its officers and employees; (x) the monthly remuneration received by each of its the system of officers and employees, compensation as provided in its regulations; (xi) the budget allocated to each of its agency, indicating the particulars of all plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements made. (xii) the manner of execution of subsidy programmes, including the amounts allocated and the details of beneficiaries of such programmes; (xiii) particulars of recipients of concessions, permits or authorisations granted by it; (xiv) details in respect of the information, available to or held by it, reduced in an electronic form; (xv) the particulars of facilities available to citizens for obtaining information, including the working hours of a library or reading room, it maintained for public use; (xvi) the names, designations and other particulars of the Public Information Officers; (xvii) such other information as may be prescribed; and thereafter update these publications every years; (c) publish all relevant facts while formulating important policies or announcing the decisions which affect public; (d) provided reasons for its administrative or quasi- judicial decisions to affected persons. (2) It shall be a constant endeavour of every public authority to take steps in accordance with the requirements of clause (b) of sub-section (1) to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including internet, so that the public have minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information. the purposes of sub-section (3) For (1), every information shall be disseminated widely and in such form and manner which is easily accessible to the public. (4) All materials shall be disseminated taking into consideration the cost effectiveness, local language and the most effective method of communication in that information should be easily local area and the accessible, to the extent possible in electronic format with the Central Public Information Officer or State 5 Public Information Officer, as the case may be, available free or at such cost of the medium or the print cost price as may be prescribed.(cid:148) Moreover, when such information was being sought, unreasonable delay has been caused which has not been explained before the authority. This delay has not been explained even before this Court. Only a bald assertion that the office was being shifted has been pleaded to explain the delay. In view of this Court, the information was supplied belatedly and there was no plausible explanation coming forward from the public authorities to explain this delay.

7. Hence, the compensation awarded to respondent no. 2 is justified under the facts and circumstances of the case. There is no scope for any interference in the impugned order. Writ petition fails and is hereby dismissed.

8. The Registrar General is hereby directed communicate a copy of this order to the Chief Secretary of the State Government who shall ensure the payment of this amount to respondent no. 2 without any delay.

9. No order as to costs. (Sudhanshu Dhulia, J.) 19.11.2012 Avneet