Del. HC stays penalty imposed by CIC upon CBI.

Law et al. News;Hary M. Pillai;Saturday, Aug 13, 2011.

The Delhi High Court today stayed the Central Information Commission (CIC) order of July 25 which had imposed a penalty of Rs 5000 on the Public Information Officer (PIO) of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for not complying with an earlier order of the CIC. The PIO had also failed to respond to the summons issued by the CIC.

The information sought by the applicant from the CBI was documents pertaining to the reasons for not naming certain industrialists in an ISD call re-routing case.

Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw today stayed the impugned order of the CIC and issued notice to PC Srivastava, the applicant, while seeking his response by 25 January 2012. Justice Endlaw was hearing an appeal filed by CBI against the CIC’s order on penalty.

When imposing the penalty of Rs 5000 on the PIO, the CIC had said “The PIO’s action is in clear violation of the principles laid down by the Supreme Court of India." The commission in its order also said that the stay against the May 26 order of the commission was obtained only on July 13 whereas the PIO was required to comply with commission's order by June 20. "Since the PIO has failed to comply with the order of the Commission, without a valid stay, (she) is liable to be penalized under Section 20(1) of the RTI Act for the period between 21/06/2011 to 12/07/2011", the CIC directed.

Section 8(1)(h) of the RTI Act exempts disclosure of information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders.

CBI on its part has been arguing that disclosure of information to the RTI applicant would affect its prosecution in the case. It is the argument of CBI that if the information sought by applicant is disclosed, then it would provide vital clue to all other persons accused in said case (ISD call re-routing).