Civil Writ Petition No.7685 of 2011 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.7685 of 2011 Date of Decision:02.05.2011 R.K.Goel ......Petitioner Versus Municipal Corporation, Sector 17, Chandigarh and others .....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR. Present: Mr.Vivek Singla, Advocate, for the petitioner. **** M EHINDER S INGH S ULLAR , J.(oral) The petitioner has preferred the instant writ petition in the nature of mandamus, directing the Municipal Corporation, Chandigarh-respondent No.1, to initiate the disciplinary action against respondent No.3, for violating The Government Employees(Conduct) Rules, 1966(for brevity “the Conduct Rules”), to pay the cost and compensation of Rs.10,000/- in pursuance of the order dated 27.12.2010(Annexure P-4) of the Central Information Commissioner(for short “the CIC”) and to impose a fine on respondent No.3 to the tune of Rs.25,000/- for furnishing the misleading information, under Section 20 of The Right to Information Act, 2005(hereinafter to be referred as “the Act), invoking the provisions of Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India. 2. After hearing the learned counsel for the petitioner, going through the record with his valuable help and after considering the entire matter deeply, to my mind, there is no merit in the present writ petition. 3. Ex facie, the argument of the learned counsel that since respondent No.3 has supplied the misleading information to the petitioner, so, a maximum penalty of Rs.25,000/- ought to have been imposed by the CIC on respondent No.3 Civil Writ Petition No.7685 of 2011 2 and respondent Nos.1 and 2 ought to have initiated disciplinary action against him, for violation of the Conduct Rules, is not only devoid of merit but misplaced as well. 4. As is clear, Section 20 of the Act postulates that, where the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission, as the case may be, at the time of deciding any complaint or appeal is of the opinion that the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, has, without any reasonable cause, refused to receive an application for information or has not furnished information within the time specified under sub-section (1) of section 7 or malafidely denied the request for information or knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information or destroyed information which was the subject of the request or obstructed in any manner in furnishing the information, it shall impose a penalty of two hundred and fifty rupees each day till application is received or information is furnished, so however, the total amount of such penalty shall not exceed twenty-five thousand rupees. 5. As is evident from the record that while deciding the matter, the CIC has imposed a compensation of Rs.8,000/- plus Rs.2,000/-, by virtue of impugned order dated 27.12.2010(Annexure P-4), the operative part of which is, as under:- “In the premises, we are of the opinion that the end of justice will be met if a compensation of Rs.8,000/- is awarded to the appellant. Ordered accordingly. The amount of Rs.8,000/- will be remitted by Dr.R.L.Sankaria to the appellant through demand draft in 04 weeks time. This will be in addition to an amount of Rs.2,000/- already awarded to the appellant vide this Commission's proceedings dated 12.11.2010.” 6. Therefore, to me, it is not the mandate of Section 20 of the Act that the CIC is always, required to impose a maximum penalty and to recommend disciplinary action against the CPIO in each and every case and he has no discretion in this regard, as urged on behalf of the petitioner. 7. Meaning thereby, the CIC has rightly exercised its discretion in Civil Writ Petition No.7685 of 2011 3 imposing the penalty on the CPIO, awarding the compensation to the petitioner to the tune of Rs.10,000/- (Rs.8,000/- + Rs.2,000/-) and recorded the valid reasons in this context. Such discretion exercised by the CIC, cannot possibly be interferred with in exercise of the writ jurisdiction of this Court, unless the same is patently illegal and without jurisdiction. As, no such patent illegality or legal infirmity has been pointed out by the learned counsel for the petitioner, therefore, the impugned order(Annexure P-4) deserves to be and is hereby maintained in the obtaining circumstances of the case. 8. In the light of aforesaid reasons, as there is no merit, therefore, the instant writ petition is hereby dismissed as such. May 02, 2011 (MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR) seema JUDGE