Application seeking copy of office order directing constitution of a Committee
28 Dec, 2012Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Northern Coalfields Ltd. seeking a copy of the Office order vide which a Committee was constituted to examine the employment cases of land oustees and some other related information. The Public Information Officer (PIO) informed the appellant that no document related to the proposal submitted before issuance of Office Order duly approved by the competent authority is available in the MP & Recruitment Section.
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The Commission observed that it was inconceivable how the deemed PIO can say that copy of the Office Order or copy of the proposal and approval of the competent authority to the proposal is not available with him. The Commission directed the General Manager (MP&R) NCL to provide requisite information to the appellant. Under section 20(1) 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 (1) 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. of the RTI Act, the Commission issued a show-cause notice to the deemed PIO to show-cause why a penalty of Rs. 25,000/- should not be imposed upon him for the delay of more than 100 days in replying to the appellant.
Citation: Mr. L.V. Raju v. Northern Coalfields Ltd in Case No. CIC/SS/A/2012/001670
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/910
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