'Professional Communications' Between Govt Pleader And State Regarding Judicial Proceedings Can't Be Disclosed Under RTI Act: Gujarat HC

While dismissing the petition, the single judge bench of Justice Biren Vaishnav Observed:

“Without getting into the motive of the learned counsel-the petitioner himself, it can be safely inferred that it was open for the petitioner as an advocate to contest the application filed before this Court on merits and not use the provisions of the RTI Act for reasons to support his professional pursuit before this Court where he would appear as an advocate.”

The petitioner who is a practising advocate, was appearing for then petitioners before a High Court in case filed in 2010 of which the petition was allowed by a coordinate bench of the Court by a judgement and order dated 23.06.2016.

The State went in appeal and filed Letters Patent Appeal (LPA) before the High Court. However, there was a delay in filing the appeal and therefore a Civil Application for condonation of delay was filed by the State.

The present petitioner who was advocate for the respondent in LPA approached the Public Information Officer (PIO) under the RTI Act asking for details of the correspondence between the parties to the appeal i.e. the office of the Mamlatdar, the legal department and the Revenue Department with the Government Pleader’s office.

The Public Information officer as well as the Appellate Authority rejected the application of the petitioner on the ground that since the parties were arrayed against each-other in the Court proceedings, no further information need to be provided. The petitioner approached the Second Appellate Authority i.e. Gujarat Information Commission (GIC) challenging the order of PIO which was rejected invoking section 8(1)(B) of the RTI Act.

Hence, the petitioner filed a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution before the High Court.

The court observed:

“The judicial proceedings before this Court in the Civil Application for condonation of delay were at large and could have been contested by the petitioner herein in his professional capacity as a lawyer and the attempt to seek details under the Right to Information Act of the correspondence between the Government Pleader’s office and the State was essentially an attempt to subvert the judicial proceedings which could have been contested on merits by the counsel, the petitioner himself”.

The court relied upon the judgement of Delhi High Court in Union of India v. R.K.Jain LPA No. 168 of 2015 in which it was held that communications between the office of the Government Pleader and the State in respect to judicial proceedings were professional communications as defined under Section 126 of the Evidence Act and therefore would squarely fall within the exemption under Section 8(1)(e) of the Right to Information Act.

In this background, the court dismissed the petition.

Case Title: Nimish Mahendra Kapadia v. The Dy. Secretary, Gujarat Information Commission

Case Citation: 2023 Livelaw (Guj) 38

Coram: Justice Biren Vaishnav

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