Civil Writ Petition No.16171 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.16171 of 2010 Date of Decision:23.03.2011 Rajesh Bansal ......Petitioner Versus State Information Commission, Haryana and others .....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR. Present: Mr.Hari Om Attri, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr.Narender Singh, Deputy Advocate General, Haryana, for respondent No.1. Nemo for respondent Nos.2 and 3. **** M EHINDER S INGH S ULLAR , J.(oral) The matrix 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 petitioner-Rajesh Bansal moved an application dated 05.01.2010(Annexure P-1) to the State Public Information Officer-cum-Assistant Registrar(Acad.) Guru Jambeshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar(respondent No.3)(for brevity “the SPIO”), sought information with regard to the attendance record of Anshuman Gupta son of Ashok Kumar Gupta, Roll No.9910205 for the year 1999 in MBA Regular three years course and photo-stat copy of his daily attendance register, in view of the provisions of The Right to Information Act, 2005(hereafter to be referred as “the Act”). The Registrar of the University informed the petitioner vide letter dated 21.01.2010(Annexure P-2), which is, as under:- “The case is too old, the attendance record of that time is not available, now, however, the attendance requirement was similar in morning and Civil Writ Petition No.16171 of 2010 2 evening classes i.e. 75%. However, the candidate has not completed his course/degree.” 2. As, the first appeal filed by the petitioner did not bear results, therefore, second appeal filed by him was accepted by the State Information Commission (for short “the SIC”) by way of impugned order dated 01.06.2010 (Annexure P-5). 3. The petitioner still did not feel satisfied and preferred the instant writ petition, challenging the impugned order(Annexure P-5) and for direction to the respondents to supply him the information in pursuance of his application (Annexure P-1), invoking the provisions of Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India. 4. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties, going through the record with their valuable assistance and after considering the entire matter deeply, to my mind, there is no merit in the instant writ petition. 5. Ex facie, the argument of the learned counsel that since the SPIO did not supply the complete information, so the SIC ought to have imposed a penalty and directed him to supply the remaining information to the petitioner, is not only devoid of merit but misplaced as well. 6. As is evident from the record that the petitioner sought the information by means of application(Annexure P-1). The SPIO submitted that the information, which was available, has already been supplied to him(petitioner). After considering the rival contentions of the parties, the SIC noticed that though the information had been furnished within a specified time limit, but the same was incomplete on point No.2 of the application(Annexure P-1). Consequently, the SIC accepted the appeal by virtue of impugned order(Annexure P-5). The operative part of which is, as under:- “In view of the above findings, the appeal is accepted and decided with the following directions:- SPIO-cum-Assistant Registrar(Acad), Guru Jambeshwar University of Civil Writ Petition No.16171 of 2010 3 Science and Technology, Hisar (Haryana) shall make serious efforts to get the record traced from the custodian of the relevant record and furnish it to the appellant within one month of the receipt of this decision. SPIO is advised to invoke the powers under Section 5(4) of the RTI Act in view of earlier vague information furnished by the custodian of the relevant record. In case the relevant record with respect to lost or stolen record remains untraced, a FIR shall be lodged with the police authorities under intimation to the appellant within one month of the receipt of this decision.” 7. In compliance with the order(Annexure P-5), the matter was reported to the police vide DDR No.13 dated 08.07.2010. The Dean and Director of the University appeared before the police and filed an affidavit that the record including the attendance register of many years have been destroyed by insects and rats and on account of repeated shifting of MBA Department to different buildings. On the basis of explanation, the police case was closed by way of order dated 08.07.2010(Annexure P-6) and accordingly, the petitioner was informed vide letter dated 09.07.2010(Annexure P-7). 8. In this view of the matter and for the reasons depicted here-in-above, as the remaining information at point No.2 of application(Annexure P-1) could not be supplied, therefore, no relief can be granted to the petitioner in the obtaining circumstances of the case. 9. In the light of aforesaid reasons, as there is no merit, therefore, the present writ petition is hereby dismissed as such. March 23, 2011 (MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR) seema JUDGE