Press Trust of India: New Delhi: Tuesday,
March 28, 2017.
The Delhi
High Court today stayed an order of CIC imposing penalty on two officers of
Delhi Pollution Control Committee for failing to provide information sought
under the Right to Information Act (RTI).
Justice
Sanjeev Sachdeva issued notice and sought response of the person who had filed
an RTI application before DPCC seeking copy of documents submitted by a
construction company for environmental clearance.
The court
while staying Chief Information Commission's (CIC) order of September 21 last
year, listed the matter for August 31.
DPCC, in its
appeal, said the CIC had wrongly imposed a penalty of Rs 1,000 each on its two
officers for not supplying information under the RTI Act as no such information
was available. The penalty was to be deducted from the salary of the two
officers.
Advocate
Balendu Shekhar, appearing for DPCC, argued that no application was filed by
the company with it seeking environmental clearance (EC) so no information
could be supplied to RTI applicant Anil Sood.
"There
was no room for the officer for interpretation of request made by Sood in his
RTI application as a specific request was made stating the documents submitted
along with EC. As no application was submitted for EC before the State
Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA), specific reply was given based
on the information provided by the dealing cell i.e. EIA cell," the plea
said.
It sought
setting aside of CIC order saying the commission had "grossly erred"
by ignoring the facts of the case.
The plea
further said that CIC has also imposed penalty on the State Public Information
Officer (SPIO) who was posted there later and had not denied the information to
Sood.
It alleged
that CIC failed to appreciate that there was no malafide intention for
withholding the information by the SPIO as it was not available with DPCC.
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