Delhi HC upholds Rs25,000 penalty against Railway Board CPIO

Moneylife: New Delhi: Saturday, 27 September 2014.

The HC dismissed the CPIO's petition at the admission stage itself against CIC's decision to impose a penalty of Rs25,000. This ruling is important because several times, public authorities have been found approaching courts at the drop of hat and at the cost of the tax payer.

In a landmark decision, the Delhi High Court dismissed the appeal filed by Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the Railway Board against the decision of Central Information Commission (CIC) to impose maximum penalty of Rs25,000. The verdict is laudable, because the Court dismissed the petition at the admission stage itself.

An official handling Right to Information (RTI) application cannot 'escape' his responsibility of answering queries by simply forwarding the application to other officials, the High Court ruled while upholding the penalty imposed by the CIC.

I had filed an appeal under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, before the CIC after the CPIO of Railway Board repeatedly denied providing information. The Commission held multiple hearings and in an exhaustive, reasoned order, directed the CPIO to provide information as well as imposed penalty on him on 11 March, 2013. The CPIO, knowing very well that there is no provision in RTI Act, 2005 to review order, approached the CIC to review its own order. The review was denied by CIC vide its letter dated 11 April 2014.

The CPIO of Railway Board then approached Delhi High Court, which upheld the decision of CIC on 12 September 2014. Few important legal points are settled by this decision of Delhi High Court:

a)    CIC does not have powers to review its own decisions.

b)    Section 6(3) of the RTI Act cannot be read to mean that the responsibility of a CPIO is only limited to forwarding the applications to different departments or offices.

Forwarding an application by a public authority to another public authority is not the same as a Public Information Officer (PIO) of a public authority arranging or sourcing information from within its own organisation. The PIO cannot escape his responsibility to provide information by simply stating that the queries were forwarded to other officials.

c)    It is not necessary that the penalty be imposed by the CIC only while considering an appeal; penalty can also be imposed by the CIC if on inquiry made pursuant to a complaint, it is found that a CPIO has not furnished the information within stipulated time or has knowingly given incorrect or incomplete information.

According to the section 6(3) of RTI Act, if a CPIO receives an application, the subject matter of which is more closely related to another public authority, he must transfer the application or the portion of it to the concerned authority within five days of receiving the application.

However, when the matter is concerning their own public authority, CPIOs can seek help of fellow officers under section 5(4) of the RTI Act. The law mandates the officer, whose assistance has been sought by the CPIO, to render all the assistance.

It is unfortunate that public authorities are openly flouting the decisions of Central Information Commission and State Information or approaching the courts at drop of hat at the cost of tax payer. It has been revealed through RTI that some public authorities have up to Rs5 lakh per hearing to some counsels in RTI matters.