Odisha State Information Commission influenced by bureaucracy, red tapism, observes Orissa HC 

Taking strong exception to the seven-year delay in providing information to a villager, the Orissa High Court observed that the Odisha State Information Commission allowed its decision to be influenced by bureaucracy and red-tape, disposing of the RTI application without ensuring that the requested information was supplied.

One Hemanta Nayak of Bhadrak district had sought information under RTI Act about status of their petition to Odisha Chief Secretary with regards to illegal encroachment of government land in their village Kuansh under Bhadrak district.

According to records submitted to Orissa HC, the grievance was taken up in government level with directions at multiple official levels to look into encroachment case. However, villagers could not get to know about their status of their case.  

However, the information was not supplied in response to application sought under RTI Act. The information seeker went for first appeal when information was denied. Again, Mr. Nayak was told that the information was not available.

Aggrieved by denial of information, the applicant moved State Information Commission in his second appeal.

The State Information Commissioner dropped matter on February 26, 2024 relying on a joint affidavit from the First Appellate Authority and the public information officer of Bhadrak Tahasil that stuck to its earlier stand that the information was not available. The petitioners, subsequently, moved Orissa High Court.

“The stand taken by the State and readily accepted by the Information Commission that point wise reply was supplied is de hors (outside) the records. In the face of communications, the ground urged by the authorities that such representation is not available only exemplifies apathy of the highest order,” observed single Bench Judge Justice V. Narasingh.

“It is indeed baffling that on one hand the State functionaries are taking a stand that such representation of the petitioner in respect of which action taken report is being sought for, through RTI Act, 2005 is not received but in the same breath it is stated that point wise reply has been provided,” Justice Mr. Narasingh observed.

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 notice of the patent contradictions in their stand and also failed to appreciate that if such stand of the State authorities is accepted at their face value as in the case at hand without due scrutiny, right of a citizen to get information as codified by Act, 2005 would be a dead letter and it will set at naught the very purpose for which the Act has been enacted to contain corruption and to hold Government and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed,” the order reads.

“This Court is constrained to observe that in rendering the impugned decision the State Information Commission allowed its finding to be entrapped in officialdom and red tapism, which are illegitimate tools to fall back, to deny response to an application under the RTI Act, 2005 and thereby render the provisions nugatory,” Justice Mr. Narasingh mentioned in his order.

Orissa HC remitted the matter back to the State Information Commissioner for fresh hearing its disposal within 45 days.

The Orissa HC judge observed the he travail of the petitioner reminds one of the plight of the protagonist ‘Josef’ in Kafka’s celebrated works ‘The Trial’ where he faces nightmarish bureaucracy that seems designed to confuse. The court directed Bhadrak Tahasildar to pay ₹50,000 to the petitioner for denial information.