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2015 (2) TMI 216 - UTTARAKHAND HIGH COURTPenalty u/s 20(1) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 - Delay in providing information - held that:- when the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission, as the case may be, while hearing the complaint or appeal, is of the opinion that Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, has, without any reasonable cause, refused to receive an application for information or has not furnished information within the time specified under sub-section (1) of Section 7 or mala fidely denied the request for information or knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information or destroyed information which was the subject of the request, in that event penalty can be imposed. In the further opinion of this Court, if there was reasonable cause for furnishing the delayed information then Chief Information Commissioner should not impose penalty merely because there was some delay in supplying the information. Appellant was not present before the Appellate Authority at the time when the appeal was taken up for hearing for the reason he had already received the information. Moreover, the explanation furnished by the petitioner before respondent No. 1 that he had directed the Head Clerk to supply the information immediately but information could not be supplied before his transfer for the reason that entire staff of the Municipal Board was engaged in the collection of data and preparation of the voter identity card under the order of Collector, Rudrapur and was busy in the rescue work after natural calamity happened in June, 2013, seems to be reasonable ground for non-supplying the information within time. - Consequently, imposition of penalty on hypertechnical ground that information was not supplied within thirty days seems to be totally unjustified and arbitrary - Decided in favour of appellant.
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