Manoj Kumar v. State Informtion Commissioner Thru. Its Registrar Lko. and 2 Others

Court No. - 3 Case :- WRIT - C No. - 10026 of 2023 Petitioner :- Manoj Kumar Respondent :- State Informtion Commissioner Thru. Its Registrar Lko. And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Tauqueer Alam Counsel for Respondent :- Shikhar Anand,C.S.C. Hon'ble Vivek Chaudhary,J. Hon'ble Om Prakash Shukla,J. Heard learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri Shikhar Anand, learned counsel for the respondent no. 1 and learned Standing Counsel for the State. Main grievance of petitioner is with regard to order dated 30.01.2023 whereby a penalty of Rs. 25,000/- is imposed upon the petitioner as well as impugned recall rejection order dated 28.07.2023. Counsel for the petitioner makes reference to clause (1) of Section 20 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, which reads as under:- "20. Penalties.(/) Where the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission, as the case may be, at the time of deciding any complaint or appeal is of the opinion that the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, has, without any reasonable cause, refused to receive an application for information or has not furnished information within the time specified under sub-section (/) of section 7 or malafidely denied the request for information or knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information or destroyed information which was the subject of the request or obstructed in any manner in furnishing the information, it shall impose a penalty of two hundred and fifty rupees each day till application is received or information is furnished, so however, the total amount of such penalty shall not exceed twenty-five thousand rupees: Provided that the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, shall be given a reasonable opportunity of being heard before any penalty is imposed on him: Provided further that the burden of proving that he acted reasonably and diligently shall be on the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be." A bare perusal of first proviso to Section 20 shows that no penalty can be imposed against a person without giving a person an reasonable opportunity of hearing. Admittedly, in the present case, after finding that information was not given in time, the appellate authority has proceeded to impose penalty to the petitioner. Counsel for the petitioner submits that the same is in violation of proviso to Section 20 of the Right to Information Act. The record does not show that any opportunity of hearing was given to the petitioner before passing the order of penalty. Therefore, the order dated 30.01.2023 to the extent that the same imposes penalty upon the petitioner is set aside. Writ petition is accordingly allowed. Order Date :- 17.11.2023 Arti/- [Om Prakash Shukla,J.] [Vivek Chaudhary,J.] High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench