Respondent: the copy of the second appeal filed before the CIC has not been received - CIC: the appellant confirmed that he had not sent the copy of the second appeal to the respondent authority - CIC: this is a serious lapse on the part of the appellant
7 Apr, 2015Order
The appellant is present. The Public Authority is represented by Mr. Vasu Dev.
FACTS:
2. The Appellant through his RTI application dated 13.02.2014 is seeking information in regard to the vigilance case regarding AS Parmar relating to the name of the DESU official who lodged FIR in the year 1992 in Nangloi P.S and the No. of the FIR, officer who conducted the Joint inspection raid in March 1992, was AS Parmar part of the Joint inspection report, etc. PIO replied on 13.03.2014 and gave parawise reply to the appellant. Being unsatisfied with the reply of the PIO, the appellant had filed First Appeal. FAA by his Order dated 17.04.2014 upheld the reply furnished by the PIO. Being unsatisfied with the information furnished, the appellant has approached the Commission in Second Appeal.
DECISION
3. Both parties made their submissions. The respondent authority submitted that they had not received the copy of the second appeal filed by the appellant before the Commission and hence they are handicapped in making submissions before the Commission. When the Commission enquired the appellant about the same, he confirmed that he had not sent the copy of the second appeal to the respondent authority. The Commission considers this as a serious lapse on the part of the appellant which will cast serious disturbance to the working of the respondent authority and the Commission. The appellant is knowingly misleading the Commission and is trying to create confusion. The Commission warns the appellant in this respect and cautions him to ensure the delivery of copy of the second appeal to the respondent authority as it is against the principles of natural justice and the respondent authority will not get an opportunity to know why the appellant is going against them in the second appeal.
4. The Commission has been told by the respondent authority that the appellant is an accused in a case which is being investigated by the CVC. According to the appellant, the respondent authority also imposed penalty against him, but he claims that he was innocent. Instead of appealing against the said penalty, he is running a parallel inquiry by a stream of RTI applications. His earlier application reached the second appeal level and it was disposed of. The Commission considers that this is yet another case of RTI misuse by the charge sheeted employees. If the appellant has any defence, he should take it up before the appropriate forum for relief against the imposition of penalty. Resorting to a series of RTI applications motivated to harass the public authority, is an offence and the public authority should initiate action against the appellant in this respect. According to the Civil Procedure Code and the principles of pleading, any party who is aggrieved of any order is expected to raise all the contentions in the first civil court and the same will apply to quasi-judicial authority also. Raising multiple applications on the same subject at the appellant’s will and pleasure, cause disturbance to the functioning of Public Authority, which was supposed to be avoided by the principles of procedure which is called “constructive res judicata” and encouraging such applications by the people like appellants will cause demoralising effect on the Public Authority in taking action against the employees committing such irregularities and resorting to corruption. The Commission finds no merit in this second appeal and it deserves to be rejected. The Commission also advises the appellant not to file any more RTI applications regarding his penalty case as the Commission does not have any authority to get into these questions. RTI cannot facilitate a preliminary inquiry to this kind of disgruntled elements. They are supposed to desist from wrongful practices and the public authority should also take a serious note of this. The appeal is rejected.
(M.Sridhar Acharyulu)
Information Commissioner
Citation: Sh.A.S.Parmar v. Delhi Transco Limited in File No.CIC/SA/A/2014/000659