IN THE HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND AT NAINITAL Special Appeal No. 128 of 2018 Jeet Pal … Appellant Versus State Information Commissioner & Anr. … Respondents Mr. Siddhartha Singh, Advocate, for the appellant. Mr. D.S. Bora, Standing Counsel, for the State. J U D G M E N T Hon’ble Manoj Kumar Tiwari, J. Hon’ble Subhash Upadhyay, J. (Per: Hon’ble Manoj Kumar Tiwari, J.) Appellant was serving as in-charge Head Master in a Govt. Junior High School in Banheda, Narsan Block of District Haridwar. An order was passed against him by State Information Commission on 13.12.2017 in Appeal No. A(HR)-24697/2017 under Section 19(3) of the Right to Information Act, 2005. In the said order, State Information Commission observed that for the acts of omission and commission committed by appellant-petitioner, he should be put under suspension and FIR should also be registered against him under Prevention of Corruption Act and, accordingly, District Magistrate, Haridwar was directed to take necessary legal action against the appellant-petitioner and submit compliance report before the Commission. Copy of the said order was sent to District Magistrate, Haridwar, Chief Education Officer, Haridwar and 2 Secretary, School Education, Govt. of Uttarakhand by registered post. 2. Appellant challenged the aforesaid order, passed by State Information Commission, in Writ Petition No. 94 of 2018. His writ petition was dismissed by learned Single Judge vide judgment dated 19.2.2018. In this intra-Court appeal, appellant has challenged the judgment dated 19.2.2018, passed by learned Single Judge. Operative portion of the impugned judgment is reproduced below: “5. Definitely, the State Information Commissioner himself has no powers to initiate an enquiry against the petitioner as the petitioner is not an employee of the Commission. All the same, the order dated 19.12.2017 is only in the nature of information or at best in the nature of a complaint to the District Magistrate, who has now to examine the matter and if he finds proper after the preliminary satisfaction, he should initiate the enquiry against the petitioner. 6. Apart from the provisions under the Act, what is relevant for our purposes is also it is a statutory authority which is the State Information Commissioner, which has found that there is a prima facie case of corruption and misappropriation of funds against the petitioner, and therefore, he has brought this to the notice of the District Magistrate, Haridwar. Now, it is for the District Magistrate to either act upon it or in case, he is not satisfied prima facie, he would be free not to take any action against the petitioner considering the nature of the complaint which relates to Mid-Day Meal Scheme and misappropriation of money from students. Since this has been brought to the notice of the District Magistrate, he should at least go into this aspect and thereafter depending upon his satisfaction, he may proceed further with the matter. 7. However, it is made clear that in case the District Magistrate, Haridwar proposes 3 to take any action against the petitioner, he shall first give a notice to the petitioner and only after the petitioner is duly heard by the concerned District Magistrate, the District Magistrate shall proceed further in the matter. 8. With the above observations, the writ petition stands disposed. 9. The Registrar General of this Court is hereby directed to communicate a copy of this order to the concerned District Magistrate for onward compliance.” 3. Learned Counsel for the appellant submits that perusal of the order dated 13.12.2017, passed by State Information Commission (impugned in the writ petition), reveals that the information sought by respondent no. 2 was supplied to him by registered post on 10.7.2017 and after supply of desired information, the appeal under Section 19(3) of RTI Act could not have been entertained. He further submits that Block Education Officer, Narsan (Haridwar) was the Public Information Officer and appellant was neither the Public Information Officer nor he was made party to the appeal, therefore the direction issued behind his back to suspend him and also to lodge FIR under Prevention of Corruption Act against him is unsustainable. He further submits that the direction to put the appellant under suspension and also to lodge the FIR against him is also beyond the scope of powers available to the State Information Commission under Section 19 of the Act. He submits that the appellant was transferred from Govt. Junior High School, Banheda, Narsan to Govt. Junior High School, Sikarpur, Narsan vide order dated 7.11.2017 and he 4 joined in the transferred school immediately thereafter. 4. Learned Counsel for the appellant further submits that the order passed by the State Information Commission is beyond the scope of its powers under Right to Information Act and Section 18(2) of the said Act, which was relied upon for dismissing the writ petition, is not at all attracted in the present case, as Section 18(2) would be attracted to a case where Public Information Officer has refused to accept an application for information or in case when a person desirous of seeking information is unable to make a request due to non-appointment of Public Information officer. He submits that the condition precedent for exercise of power under Section 18(2) of the Act is non-existent in the present case as the application made by respondent no. 2 was not only accepted but the desired information was also supplied to him, as is revealed by the order passed by the State Information Commission. 5. Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Chief Information Commissioner v. State of Manipur, (2011) 15 SCC 1, held that under Section 18 of Right to Information Act, Central or State Information Commission has no power to provide access to the information which has been denied to an applicant and further that only order which can be passed under Section 18 of the Act is an order of penalty provided 5 under Section 20 of the Act and further that before such order is passed, the Information Commissioner must be satisfied that the conduct of the Information Officer was not bona fide. 6. In the aforesaid judgment, it was further held that a person who has sought information under Section 6 of the Act and has not received any reply thereto, has the remedy of filing an appeal under Section 19 of the Act. Relevant extract of the said judgment is reproduced below: 39. The nature of the power under Section 18 is supervisory in character whereas the procedure under Section 19 is an appellate procedure and a person who is aggrieved by refusal in receiving the information which he has sought for can only seek redress in the manner provided in the statute, namely, by following the procedure under Section 19. This Court is, therefore, of the opinion that Section 7 read with Section 19 provides a complete statutory mechanism to a person who is aggrieved by refusal to receive information. Such person has to get the information by following the aforesaid statutory provisions. The contention of the appellant that information can be accessed through Section 18 is contrary to the express provision of Section 19 of the Act. 40. It is well known that when a procedure is laid down statutorily and there is no challenge to the said statutory procedure the Court should not, in the name of interpretation, lay down a procedure which is contrary to the express statutory provision. It is a time-honoured principle as early as from the decision in Taylor v. Taylor [(1875) 1 Ch D 426 (CA)] that where a statute provides for something to be done in a particular manner it can be done in that manner alone and all other modes of performance are necessarily forbidden. This principle has been followed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Nazir 6 Ahmad v. Emperor [(1935-36) 63 IA 372 : AIR 1936 PC 253 (2)] and also by this Court in Deep Chand v. State of Rajasthan [AIR 1961 SC 1527 : (1961) 2 Cri LJ 705] , AIR at para 9 and also in State of U.P. v. Singhara Singh [AIR 1964 SC 358 : (1964) 1 Cri LJ 263 (2)] reported in AIR at para 8. 41. This Court accepts the argument of the appellant that any other construction would render the provision of Section 19(8) of the Act totally redundant. It is one of the well-known canons of interpretation that no statute should be interpreted in such a manner as to render a part of it redundant or surplusage. 42. We are of the view that Sections 18 and 19 of the Act serve two different purposes and lay down two different procedures and they provide two different remedies. One cannot be a substitute for the other. 43. It may be that sometime in a statute words are used by way of abundant caution. The same is not the position here. Here a completely different procedure has been enacted under Section 19. If the interpretation advanced by the learned counsel for the respondent is accepted, in that case Section 19 will become unworkable and especially Section 19(8) will be rendered a surplusage. Such an interpretation is totally opposed to the fundamental canons of construction. 44. Reference in this connection may be made to the decision of this Court in Aswini Kumar Ghose v. Arabinda Bose [(1952) 2 SCC 237 : AIR 1952 SC 369] . At p. 377 of the Report Patanjali Sastri, C.J. had laid down : (AIR para 26) “26. … It is not a sound principle of construction to brush aside words in a statute as being in apposite surplusage, if they can have appropriate application in circumstances conceivably within the contemplation of the statute.” 45. Same was the opinion of Jagannadhadas, J. in Rao Shiv Bahadur Singh v. State of Vindhya Pradesh [(1953) 2 SCC 111 : AIR 1953 SC 394 : 1953 Cri LJ 1480] SC at p. 397 : (AIR para 5) “5. … it is incumbent on the court to avoid a construction, if reasonably permissible on the language, which would render a part of the statute devoid of any meaning or application.” 7 46. Das Gupta, J. in J.K. Cotton Spg. & Wvg. Mills Co. Ltd. v. State of U.P. [AIR 1961 SC 1170] at p. 1174 virtually reiterated the same principles in the following words : (AIR para 7) “7. … the courts always presume that the legislature inserted every part thereof for a purpose and the legislative intention is that every part of the statute should have effect.” 47. It is well known that the legislature does not waste words or say anything in vain or for no purpose. Thus, a construction which leads to redundancy of a portion of the statute cannot be accepted in the absence of compelling reasons. In the instant case there is no compelling reason to accept the construction put forward by the respondents. 48. Apart from that the procedure under Section 19 of the Act, when compared to Section 18, has several safeguards for protecting the interest of the person who has been refused the information he has sought. Section 19(5), in this connection, may be referred to. Section 19(5) puts the onus to justify the denial of request on the Information Officer. Therefore, it is for the officer to justify the denial. There is no such safeguard in Section 18. Apart from that the procedure under Section 19 is a time- bound one but no limit is prescribed under Section 18. So out of the two procedures, between Section 18 and Section 19, the one under Section 19 is more beneficial to a person who has been denied access to information. 49. There is another aspect also. The procedure under Section 19 is an appellate procedure. A right of appeal is always a creature of statute. A right of appeal is a right of entering a superior forum for invoking its aid and interposition to correct errors of the inferior forum. It is a very valuable right. Therefore, when the statute confers such a right of appeal that must be exercised by a person who is aggrieved by reason of refusal to be furnished with the information. 7. Learned Single Judge has repelled the challenge thrown by the appellant to the order passed by State Information Commission by holding that it is referable to the power 8 available to State Information Commission under sub-section (2) of Section 18 of the Act and further that the order of the Commission passed on 13.12.2017 is only in the nature of information or at best in the nature of complaint to the District Magistrate. The view taken by the learned Single Judge is unsustainable for the reason that Section 18 would be attracted only when a person is refused access to any information requested under Right to Information Act or is given incomplete, misleading or false information under the Act or is not given a response to a request for information or access to information within the time limits specified under the Act. 8. Conditions necessary for exercise of power under Section 18 of the Act are non- existent in the present case. Moreover, appellant is neither Public Information Officer nor he was in any manner responsible for refusing access to information or for giving incomplete, misleading or false information or for not giving response to a request for information made by respondent no. 2. Even otherwise also, the appellant was not party to the proceedings before State Information Commission and he was not given any notice or hearing before passing the order. Therefore, the impugned order is violative of principles of natural justice. Moreover, direction to lodge FIR against the appellant under Prevention of 9 Corruption Act is beyond the scope of powers available to State Information Commission. 9. For the aforesaid reasons, we allow the appeal and set aside the impugned judgment and also the order dated 13.12.2017, passed by the State Information Commission. However, we make it clear that this judgment will not preclude the disciplinary authority from taking appropriate disciplinary action against the appellant, if he is found to be guilty of misconduct in departmental enquiry. (Subhash Upadhyay, J.) (Manoj Kumar Tiwari, J.) 2.6.2025 Pr PRABODH KUMAR Digitally signed by PRABODH KUMAR DN: c=IN, o=HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND, ou=HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND, 2.5.4.20=3a082a00a95aff911a9559743af8f21c50602ff6eae4e 61af3aeab198d462503, postalCode=263001, st=UTTARAKHAND, serialNumber=0DC111E8D8CA66E16B940EFDF806ACCC1AB 588052DF6FCA58C67F3C91957BE53, cn=PRABODH KUMAR Date: 2025.06.10 17:33:28 +05'30'