RTI Act | Public Information Officer Cannot Challenge Appellate Authority's Order Directing It To Disclose Information: Karnataka High Court

The Karnataka High Court has made it clear that under the Right to Information Act, a Public information Officer has no authority to prefer an appeal against an order passed by the Appellate Authority, directing him to furnish information to an applicant under the Act.

The power to prefer an appeal challenging an order passed by the Appellate authority has been conferred only on the persons who had sought for information, it held.

A single judge bench of Justice N S Sanjay Gowda has said,

“There is no provision under the Act which enables any of the parties, let alone a Public Information Officer, to prefer an appeal against the order to the Second Appellate Authority.”

The court made the observation while dismissing a petition filed by Dr Mahesh Joshi, Central Public Information Officer/Deputy Director General, Doordarshan Kendra. He had approached the court, challenging the order passed by the Second Appellate Authority, directing the CPIO to provide the applicant S Bhajantri, the desired information along with photocopies of the relevant documents within thirty days.

Instead of complying with the order, he proceeded to submit an appeal to the Chief Information Commissioner, praying that the matter may be referred to a larger Bench and the matter be decided on merits. Until such time, it was requested that the order passed by Information Commissioner may be kept in abeyance and he may be permitted to withhold the information.

Since the Commissioner did not pass any orders, the CPIO presented the writ petition challenging the order passed by the Second Appellate Authority directing him to furnish the information.

It was contended by him that he had received a complaint from another officer alleging that the applicant was utilising RTI Act for the purpose of collecting information with the objective of blackmailing certain people and therefore, he could not be provided with this information.

Firstly the bench noted that a Public Information Officer is designated with the sole purpose of ensuring that the information sought for by an applicant is furnished.”

The court observed that the provisions of the RTI Act enable the Public Information Officer an exemption from disclosure of information only for the reasons set out in Section 8 of the Act. "Apart from the reasons set out in Section 8 of the Act, the Public Information Officer has no authority in law to deny the request for grant of information. Admittedly, none of the grounds provided under Section 9 is applicable in this case,” it observed.

However, for some strange reasons, the bench remarked, the CPIO instead of furnishing the information had proceeded to "defy" the order of the Second Appellate Authority and prefer an appeal, which indicates that the only intention of the CPIO was to "deny the information" sought for by the applicant.

The bench also clarified that the Act itself makes it clear that the reason for seeking the information sought need not be stated. It added “If this argument is to be accepted, the very Act would be rendered nugatory and the Public Information Officer would be given the status of a Judge to decide as to whether the information should or should not be furnished.”

Observing that the role of the CPIO under the Act is limited to deal with the request that has been sought for providing information, the bench made it clear “The provisions of the Act do not confer any legal right on the Officer who has been designated as the Public Information Officer to act in an adversarial manner to the applicant who had sought for the information.”

Following which it held, “The filing of the present writ petition is nothing but a brazen attempt to ensure that the order of the Second Appellate Authority directing him to furnish information is overcome.”

Accordingly it dismissed the petition and imposed a cost of Rs 25,000, payable by Joshi, within a period of one month from the date of this order.

Case Title: Central Public Information Officer/Deputy Director General, Doordarshan Kendra And Central Information Commission & ANR.

Case NO: WRIT PETITION NO. 2346 OF 2011 (GM-RES) C/W WRIT PETITION NO. 663 OF 2011

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Kar) 165

Date of Order: 10-04-2023

Appearance: Advocate M.D.Anuradha URS for petitioner.

CGC Aditya Singh FOR R1.

Advocate Manjunath G Kandekar For R2.

Click Here To Read/Download Order