Civil Writ Petition No.21666 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.21666 of 2010 Date of Decision:18.01.2011 Dharambir ......Petitioner Versus State of Haryana and others .....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR. Present: Mr.Rajesh Malik, Advocate, for the petitioner. **** M EHINDER S INGH S ULLAR , J.(oral) The epitome of the facts, which needs a necessary mention for a limited purpose of deciding the core controversy, involved in the instant writ petition and emanating from the record, is that the petitioner sought information from Om Devi, Sarpanch-cum-State Public Information Officer(for brevity “the SPIO”)(respondent No.5), invoking the provisions of The Right to Information Act, 2005(hereinafter to be referred as “the Act”). 2. The petitioner claimed that the information was not supplied to him by the SPIO, despite the letter to her by the BDPO-First Appellate Authority(for short “the FAA”)(respondent No.3). He(petitioner) filed the appeal before respondent No.3, who directed her to supply the complete information within a period of three days, but in vain. 3. Aggrieved by the actions of the SPIO and the FAA, the petitioner filed the appeal, which was disposed of by the State Information Commissioner, Haryana(for brevity “the SIC”) by virtue of impugned order dated 01.07.2010 (Annexure P-5). 4. The petitioner still did not feel satisfied and filed the instant writ Civil Writ Petition No.21666 of 2010 2 petition, challenging the impugned order(Annexure P-5), invoking the provisions of Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India. 5. 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. 6. However, the cosmetic arguments of the learned counsel that the SIC did not impose a penalty on the SPIO under Section 20(1) of the Act and since the petitioner was not satisfied with the incomplete information supplied to him, so, the impugned order(Annexure P-5) is illegal, are not only devoid of merit but misplaced as well. 7. As is evident from the record that during the course of proceedings, the SPIO(respondent No.5) produced the self-attested copies of the informations sought, before the SIC and the same were handed over to the petitioner vide impugned order(Annexure P-5). The operative part of which is, as under:- “Proceeding of show cause notice heard. During hearing, Smt. Om Devi, SPIO-cum-Sarpanch, Gram Panchayat, Kambo Pura, appeared along with Sh.Pankaj Bali, Advocate and produced self-attested copies of the information before the commission and the same has been handed over to the appellant. She submitted that she is an illiterate lady and does not understand the provisions of RTI Act and now she is not Sarpanch of her village as the village has already included in the Municipal Corporation, Karnal. She also apologised for delay in providing information within time. In view of the above stated facts and on perusal of the record and taking a lenient view, the penal proceeding initiated against State Public Information Officer-cum-Sarpanch, Gram Panchayat, Kambo Pura (Karnal) under Section 20(1) of the RTI Act, 2005 are hereby dropped. However, respondent/Sarpanch is warned for lapses caused by her part in providing the information.” 8. The petitioner did not raise any such objection that the information supplied to him, is incomplete in terms of his application at the relevant time. 9. Meaning thereby, the information sought has already been supplied Civil Writ Petition No.21666 of 2010 3 to the petitioner and the SIC has recorded the valid reasons for not imposing the penalty on the SPIO(respondent No.5), as she was an illiterate lady and has already ceased to be the Sarpanch of Gram Panchayat of the village. Such valid grounds cannot possibly be interfered with, in exercise of limited jurisdiction of this Court under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India, unless the same are perverse or without jurisdiction. No such patent illegality or legal infirmity has been pointed out by the learned counsel for the petitioner in the impugned order. Therefore, the same deserves to be maintained in the obtaining circumstances of the case. 10. In the light of aforesaid reasons, as there is no merit, therefore, the instant writ petition is hereby dismissed as such. 11. Needless to mention that, if the petitioner is not fully satisfied with the information supplied to him, he would be at liberty to file a fresh application for obtaining the remaining information, after the payment of requisite fees under the Act/Rules. January 18, 2011 (MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR) seema JUDGE