1 / 3 3 wp 938.21.odt. IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH : NAGPUR WRIT PETITION NO. 938 OF 2021 Subhash Shikshan Sanstha thr. its President Siddharth s/o Narayanrao Watane and another. Vs. Commissioner, State Information Commission Bench at Amravati and another ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Office notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's Orders. or directions and Registrar's orders. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. P.R. Agrawal, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. N.S. Autkar, AGP for the State. CORAM : M.W. CHANDWANI, J. DATE : 08.01.2026 The petition challenges the order dated 24.10.2018 passed by the Commissioner, State Information Commission, Amravati in Appeal No.907/2015 whereby the petitioners were directed to supply the information sought by the respondent No.2, apart from imposing penalty of Rs.25,000/- on the petitioners with a direction of conducting inquiry. 2. Though various grounds are raised in the petition but the only ground which is pressed in the argument is that the State Information Commissioner should not have imposed the penalty of Rs.25,000/- on the petitioner No.2-Public Information Officer. manisha 2026:BHC-NAG:319 2 / 3 3 wp 938.21.odt. 3. According to the petitioners, there is no fault on part of the petitioners and no show cause notice was issued to the petitioners before imposing the penalty. Needless to mention that Section 20 of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (“RTI Act”) authorizes to the State Information Officer, State Commission to impose maximum the penalty of Rs.25,000/- if information is not provided by the Information Officer within 30 days. The proviso of Section 20(1) of the RTI Act provides that before imposing penalty reasonable opportunity of being heard is required to be given to the Public Information Officer. 4. Un-disputedly no notices has been issued to the petitioner No.2-Public Information Officer by the State Commission before imposing penalty, in the impugned order. Having found so, the order of State Information Commission does not stand and is required to be set aside. 5. Accordingly, the order dated 24.10.2018 passed by the learned Commissioner, State Information Commission, Bench at Amravati in Appeal No.907/2015 is hereby quashed and set aside, only to the extend of imposing penalty to the petitioner No.2. manisha 3 / 3 3 wp 938.21.odt. 6. Needless to mention that the remaining order of the State Commission remains unaffected. 7. In the aforesaid terms, the petition is disposed of. (M.W. CHANDWANI, J.) manisha