CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
Club Building (Near Post Office)
Old JNU Campus, New Delhi - 110067
Tel: +91-11-26161796
Decision No. CIC/SG/A/2011/001385/13348Penalty
Appeal No. CIC/SG/A/2011/001385
Relevant facts emerging from the Appeal:
Appellant : Mr. Vijay Pal Jagdish
14/173, Kalyan Puri
Delhi-91
Respondent : Mr. S.R. Sharma,
Deemed PIO & SS
Municipal Corporation of Delhi,
Shahdara North Zone,
Keshav Chowk, Welcome Metro Station,
Shahdara, Delhi- 110032
RTI application filed on : 25-11-2010
PIO replied on : -----------
First Appeal filed on : 08-03-2011
First Appellate Authority order of : 29-04-2011
Second Appeal received on : 24-05-2011
Sl. Information Sought Reply of PIO
1. Information regarding the missing service book of the appellant who is an Not replied
employee of MCD.
Grounds for the First Appeal:
The PIO did not reply.
Order of the First Appellate Authority (FAA):
The FAA had noted that Mr. Nawal Kishore, ZS and Mr. Sita Ram, SS were present at the hearing.
FAA has directed the PIO to investigate into the matter and provide a suitable/satisfactory reply to the
appellant within a period of 10 days from the date of issue of this letter.
Ground of the Second Appeal:
The PIO didn't reply.
Relevant Facts
emerging during the hearing held on 09/07/2011:
The following were present:
Appellant: Mr. Vijay Pal Jagdish;
Respondent: Absent;
“The Appellant is working as Safai Karmachari with MCD and states that his service file has
not been located since some years. He therefore filed the RTI application for which no reply was
given. Even after the order of the FAA no information has been provided to the Appellant. The
Appellant is understandably worried since if his service book is not located it will have grave
implications in the future.”
Decision dated 09/07/2011:
The Appeal was allowed.
Page 1 of 4
“The PIO is directed to provide the information about the location of the Appellant’s service
file before 30 July 2011.
The issue before the Commission is of not supplying the complete, required information by the
PIO within 30 days as required by the law.
From the facts before the Commission it appears that the PIO is guilty of not furnishing information
within the time specified under sub-section (1) of Section 7 by not replying within 30 days, as per the
requirement of the RTI Act. He has further refused to obey the orders of his superior officer, which
raises a reasonable doubt that the denial of information may also be malafide. The First Appellate
Authority has clearly ordered the information to be given.
It appears that the PIO’s actions attract the penal provisions of Section 20 (1). A showcause notice is
being issued to him, and he is directed give his reasons to the Commission to show cause why penalty
should not be levied on him.
He will present himself before the Commission at the above address on 09 August 2011 at 10.30am
alongwith his written submissions showing cause why penalty should not be imposed on him as
mandated under Section 20 (1). He will also submit proof of having given the information to the
appellant.”
Relevant facts emerging during the showcause hearing on 09/08/2011:
Appellant: Mr. Vijay Pal Jagdish;
Respondent: Mr. Ravideep Singh Chahar, PIO & AC; Mr. S.R. Sharma, Deemed PIO & SS and Mr.
Raman Kumar;
The PIO & AC Mr. Ravideep Singh Chahar has submitted his written submissions, wherein it
is mentioned that the RTI application dated 25/11/2010 was forwarded to the Deemed PIO & SS Mr.
S.R. Sharma on 30/11/2010 and a reminder letter was also sent to the Deemed PIO on 30/12/2010.
Subsequently, during the hearing held on 26/04/2011 before the FAA the deemed PIO Mr. S.R.
Sharma was appeared and the FAA’s order dated 29/04/2011 was also forwarded to him on
04/05/2011. No information was furnished by the deemed PIO Mr. S.R. Sharma. The PIO Mr. Chahar
has stated that after the Commission’s order dated 09/07/2011, it has been ascertained that the service
file is not traceable and a request for lodging the FIR has been sent to the SHO, Welcome vide letter
dated 20/07/2011. A request has also been forwarded to the Deputy Commissioner for granting the
permission to reconstruct the said file. A reply with this regard has been sent to the Appellant through
speed post on 08/08/2011. The PIO states that his service book is not being re-constructed and
reconstructed service book will be available before 30 August 2011.
Deemed PIO Mr. S.R. Sharma has stated that the responsible person for this delay is the LDC
Mr. M.K. Gupta, who is suffering from cancer. The Commission cannot understand why Mr. S. R.
Sharma could not have come to the conclusion initially that the service book was not available
anywhere. The PIO had sought the assistance of Mr. S. R. Sharma and it was his responsibility to
provide the information.
Under Section 5(4) of the RTI Act only the PIO has been given the power to seek assistance from any
other officer to provide information. From a reading of Section 5(5) of the RTI Act, it appears that the
officer whose assistance is sought shall be treated as the PIO only for the purpose of Section 20 of the RTI
Act and not for the purpose of Section 5(4) of the RTI Act. Therefore, the officer whose assistance is
sought cannot transfer the liability of providing the information to another officer. Even if he did seek
assistance, he would be the person responsible to provide the information on time and in case of default be
liable for penalty under Section 20 of the RTI Act. Justification for the aforesaid may also be found in
Section 2(j) of the RTI Act which stipulates that information sought by the Appellant must be held by or
be in control of a public authority. The RTI Act does not name any specific officer who must have custody
of the information sought. There is an administrative responsibility on the part of the PIO and/ or deemed
PIO seeking further assistance to provide the correct and complete information in a timely manner, which
cannot be shifted to a subordinate officer.
Page 2 of 4
The Commission has noted that in the instant case, the PIO had sought the assistance of Mr. S. R. Sharma,
SS & Deemed PIO under Section 5(4) of the RTI Act. Mr. Sharma forwarded the RTI application to the
UDC Mr. M. K. Gupta who failed to submit the correct and complete information within the prescribed
time limit. The Commission rules that in such circumstances, notwithstanding the default on the part of
Mr. M. K. Gupta, Mr. S. R. Sharma would be the deemed PIO for the purposes of Section 20 of the RTI
Act and therefore, would be liable to be penalised.
In the instant case it appears that the service book of the appellant had been stolen/lost and it was the
administrative responsibly of Mr. S. R. Sharma to have realized this informed the Appellant. Since the
service book was not reported missing the Appellant could not have got his service book. The Appellant
states that he was in need of an advance against his GPF for his daughter’s wedding. Since the service
book was not being given he could not avail of the advance. The PIO states that the service book is not
required for this but admits that service book is an important documents which an employee should be
able to access. Mr. S. R. Sharma has given no reasonable cause for not providing the information to the
Appellant.
Section 20 (1) of the RTI Act states, “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;
Provided that the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the
case may be, shall be given a reasonable opportunity of being heard before any penalty is imposed on
him:
Provided further that the burden of proving that he acted reasonably and diligently shall be on the
Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be.”
A plain reading of Section 20 reveals that there are three circumstances where the Commission must
impose penalty:
1) Refusal to receive an application for information.
2) Not furnishing information within the time specified under sub-section (1) of section 7 - 30
days.
3) Malafidely denying the request for information or knowingly giving incorrect, incomplete or
misleading information or destroying information which was the subject of the request
4) Obstructing in any manner in furnishing the information.
All the above are prefaced by the infraction, ‘ without reasonable cause’.
Section 19 (5) of the RTI Act has also stated that “In any appeal proceedings, the onus to prove that a
denial of a request was justified shall be on the Central Public Information Officer or State Public
Information Officer, as the case may be, who denied the request.”
Thus if without reasonable cause, information is not furnished within the time specified under sub-
section (1) of section 7, the Commission is dutybound to levy a penalty at the rate of rupees two
hundred and fifty each day till the information is furnished. Once the Commission decides that there
was no reasonable cause for delay, it has to impose the penalty at the rate specified in Section 20 (1)
of the RTI Act and the law gives no discretion in the matter. The burden of proving that denial of
information by the PIO was justified and reasonable is clearly on the PIO as per Section 19(5) of the
RTI Act.
Page 3 of 4
The RTI application has been filed on 25/11/2010 and the information should have been provided to
the Appellant before 25/12/2010. The PIO has shown that reminders had also been given to the
Deemed PIO Mr. S. R. Sharma yet he did not provide any information. The FAA gave an order on
29/04/2011 when Mr. S. R. Sharma was present during the hearing and yet no information was
provided despite the order of the FAA. Finally the Appellant has been informed on 08/08/2011 that his
service book has been lost. Since the delay in providing the information has been far in excess of 100
days and no reasonable cause has been advanced for this delay. The Commission imposes the
maximum penalty of `25000/- on Mr. S.R. Sharma, Deemed PIO & SS under Section 20(1) of the RTI
Act.
Decision:
As per the provisions of Section 20 (1) of the RTI Act 2005, the Commission
finds this a fit case for levying penalty on Mr. S.R. Sharma, Deemed PIO & SS. Since
the delay in providing the information has been over 100 days, the Commission is
passing an order penalizing Mr. S.R. Sharma `25000/ which is the maximum penalty
under the Act.
The Commissioner, Municipal Corporation of Delhi is directed to recover the
amount of `25000/- from the salary of Mr. S.R. Sharma and remit the same by a
demand draft or a Banker’s Cheque in the name of the Pay & Accounts Officer, CAT,
payable at New Delhi and send the same to Shri Pankaj K.P. Shreyaskar, Joint
Registrar and Deputy Secretary of the Central Information Commission, 2nd Floor,
August Kranti Bhawan, New Delhi – 110066. The amount may be deducted at the rate
of `5000/ per month every month from the salary of Mr. S.R. Sharma and remitted by
the 10th of every month starting from September 2011. The total amount of `25000 /-
will be remitted by 10th of January, 2012.
Shailesh Gandhi
Information Commissioner
09 August 2011
(In any correspondence on this decision, mention the complete decision number.) (S
Copy:
1- The Municipal Commissioner
Municipal Corporation of Delhi
04th Floor, Dr. SPM Civic Center,
New Delhi
2. Shri Pankaj K.P. Shreyaskar,
Joint Registrar and Deputy Secretary
Central Information Commission,
2nd Floor, August Kranti Bhawan,
New Delhi - 110066
3- Mr. Ravideep Singh Chahar
PIO & Assistant Commissioner
Municipal Corporation of Delhi,
Shahdara North Zone,
Keshav Chowk, Welcome Metro Station,
Shahdara, Delhi- 110032
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