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A view of the outside of the Orissa High Court, in Cuttack, Orissa. | Photo Credit: The Hindu
One Hemanta Nayak of Bhadrak district had sought data beneath RTI Act about standing of their petition to Odisha Chief Secretary with reference to unlawful encroachment of presidency land of their village Kuansh beneath Bhadrak district.
According to information submitted to Orissa HC, the grievance was taken up in authorities stage with instructions at a number of official ranges to look into encroachment case. However, villagers couldn’t get to find out about their standing of their case.
However, the data was not equipped in response to software sought beneath RTI Act. The data seeker went for first attraction when data was denied. Again, Mr. Nayak was instructed that the data was not out there.
Aggrieved by denial of data, the applicant moved State Information Commission in his second attraction.
The State Information Commissioner dropped matter on February 26, 2024 counting on a joint affidavit from the First Appellate Authority and the general public data officer of Bhadrak Tahasil that caught to its earlier stand that the data was not out there. The petitioners, subsequently, moved Orissa High Court.
“The stand taken by the State and readily accepted by the Information Commission that time sensible reply was equipped is de hors (exterior) the information. In the face of communications, the bottom urged by the authorities that such illustration just isn’t out there solely exemplifies apathy of the very best order,” noticed single Bench Judge Justice V. Narasingh.
“It is certainly baffling that on one hand the State functionaries are taking a stand that such illustration of the petitioner in respect of which motion taken report is being searched for, via RTI Act, 2005 just isn’t acquired however in the identical breath it’s said that time sensible reply has been supplied,” Justice Mr. Narasingh noticed.
He remarked, “ex facie such stand of the State authorities is incongruous. Such patent contradictory stand escaped the scrutiny of the State Information Commission.”
“In passing the impugned order, the State Information Commission mechanically accepted the stand of the State authorities, failing to take discover of the patent contradictions of their stand and in addition failed to understand that if such stand of the State authorities is accepted at their face worth as within the case at hand with out due scrutiny, proper of a citizen to get data as codified by Act, 2005 could be a lifeless letter and it’ll set at naught the very objective for which the Act has been enacted to include corruption and to carry Government and their instrumentalities accountable to the ruled,” the order reads.
“This Court is constrained to look at that in rendering the impugned resolution the State Information Commission allowed its discovering to be entrapped in officialdom and pink tapism, that are illegitimate instruments to fall again, to disclaim response to an software beneath the RTI Act, 2005 and thereby render the provisions worthless,” Justice Mr. Narasingh talked about in his order.
Orissa HC remitted the matter again to the State Information Commissioner for recent listening to its disposal inside 45 days.
The Orissa HC decide noticed the he travail of the petitioner reminds one of many plight of the protagonist ‘Josef’ in Kafka’s celebrated works ‘The Trial’ the place he faces nightmarish paperwork that appears designed to confuse. The court docket directed Bhadrak Tahasildar to pay ₹50,000 to the petitioner for denial data.
Published – October 11, 2025 03:15 am IST
