Allahabad High Court
Prem Kumar Trivedi vs State Information Commission Thr.Its ... on 19 November, 2024
Bench: Ashwani Kumar Mishra, Samit Gopal
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD, LUCKNOW BENCH
?Neutral Citation No. - 2024:AHC-LKO:76039-DB
Court No. - 16
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 8920 of 2012
Petitioner :- Prem Kumar Trivedi
Respondent :- State Information Commission Thr.Its Secy. Lko.And Another
Counsel for Petitioner :- Amrendra Nath Tripathi
Counsel for Respondent :- Shikhar Anand,Akhilendra Pratap Singh,Arpit Shukla
Hon'ble Ashwani Kumar Mishra,J.
Hon'ble Samit Gopal,J.
This petition is directed against the judgment and order passed by the State Information Commission imposing penalty of Rs. 25,000/- along with Rs. 5,000/- compensation on account of negligence on part of the petitioner.
It appears that an application was filed by the private respondent seeking details from the petitioner with regard to number of persons who had obtained gas connection from a particular gas agency. For such information an appeal was preferred by the private respondent before the State Information Commission on which notices were issued fixing 17.09.2010 as the date. The order impugned shows that on 13.05.2011 when the case was taken up none appeared for the District Supply Officer, Deoria and the information required to be furnished to the private respondent was not made available to him. In this context, the order impugned has been passed by the State Information Commission.
The petitioner in the writ petition alleges that the notice issued on 20.08.2010 fixing 17.09.2010 was received by the office of the District Supply Officer, Deoria on 16.09.2010 which was a day before the date fixed for appearance of the officer i.e. 17.09.2010. Copy of the notice has been annexed in order to demonstrate that neither any copy of the complaint was annexed along with the notice nor the details were furnished with regard to information that was demanded by the private respondent. On 20.09.2010, the petitioner requested the Commission to furnish the copy of the complaint to be furnished. It is submitted that despite such request made complaint was not furnished to him. The petitioner then states that the information sought was with respect to the gas connections offered by a licensee of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. The information made available by the licensee was already furnished to the private respondent vide letter dated 22.04.2010. The petitioner, therefore, moved an application seeking recall of the order of State Information Commission dated 12.08.2011, which has been rejected by the subsequent order of Commission dated 05.07.2012.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that while rejecting the application, a further direction is issued to get recovery of penalty from the salary of the petitioner. It is contended that the order impugned is against the principles of natural justice inasmuch as the copy of the complaint, which was the basis ofcomplaint, was not furnished to him despite the request made in that regard and in its absence the petitioner was prevented from responding to the notice. It is also submitted that the information demanded from the petitioner was already furnished to the private respondent on 22.04.2010, which fact has been brought to the notice of the Commission by the petitioner but despite it, the Commission proceeded to pass the order impugned.
We have heard Sri Amrendra Nath Tripathi, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Shikhar Anand, learned counsel for the State Information Commission. Despite the notices issued to the respondent no.2, none has appeared on his behalf.
Admittedly, the petitioner was posted as District Supply Officer, Deoria. The information sought from him was with regard to the number of gas connections offered by M/s Asha Gas Services. The substance of petitioner's contention is that the said information was not available with the petitioner and after he got such information from the concerned agency, the facts in that regard were duly intimated to the private respondent on 22.04.2010. The second respondent subsequently made a complaint saying that the information furnished by petitioner to him was not correct. The complaint made by the private respondent vide letter dated 21.05.2010 to the petitioner, which is contained in annexure 8 to the writ petition, would clearly demonstrate that the information made available to the petitioner by the concerned gas agency was already furnished to the respondent no.2.
The notice issued on the complaint / appeal filed by respondent no.2 was received in the office of the petitioner a day before the date fixed for appearance. This notice did not accompany with it the copy of the complaint/memo of appeal etc. and despite requests in that regard by the petitioner such documents were not furnished. In such circumstances, there appears to be an apparent denial of opportunity to the petitioner by the Commission while passing order impugned dated 12.08.2011 as also rejecting the recall application of the petitioner, vide order dated 05.07.2012.
In that view of the matter, we find that information demanded by the private respondent was already furnished to him, by the petitioner, as such there was no occasion for the Commission to impose penalty upon the petitioner vide order impugned. The direction in this regard is wholly unwarranted. Equally the direction issued to pay compensation also and to recover the penalty amount from the salary of the petitioner while rejecting the recall application is illegal and arbitrary. The writ petition is accordingly allowed. Orders dated 12.08.2011 and 05.07.2012 are consequently set aside. No orders are passed as to costs.
Order Date :- 19.11.2024
M. Arif
