The Delhi High Court slammed the Central Government for filing writ petition against the order of Central Information Commission (CIC) on the duty of state to provide access to law almost instantly.
Awrit petition was filed in the Hon’ble Delhi High Court challenging the order dated November 4, 2015 in which the Central Information Commission (CIC) had directed the petitioner, the government’s legislative department, to upload all the latest amended bare Acts, examine the functionality of their e-mail ID and develop an appropriate RTI filing mechanism. The Commission, exercising its powers under Section 19(8)(b) of RTI Act, had directed the respondent public authority to pay Rs.10,000/- (Rupees Ten Thousand Only) as a token compensation to the library of the National Law School of India University, Bangaluru, for causing loss of time of several law students, more specifically of the appellant, not providing easy access to email, or not making email ids easily available, delaying the information etc.
Vansh Sharad Gupta, a student of National Law School of India University, Bangaluru, had filed an RTI application through email, originally to know the e-mail ID of CPIO, Legislative department. Having received no information within the prescribed period, the complainant filed his first appeal through e-mail. Claiming non furnishing of information, complainant approached the Commission. The Law student wanted to study Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1972 from the website, but he couldn’t. Though he could find the Bare Act, it was impossible to read as that PDF of Bare Act was not at all formatted. He contended that as a student of law, for his course work, he required to refer to several Bare Acts to ascertain the correct position of law, but website was not in position to help the students of law in any way. He appealed to provide such Bare Acts in a readable PDF format. It was in this context he wanted access to email ID of CPIO of the legislative department.
“Needless to say that a duty upon the state to inform citizens about the Law as and when it was made and the citizens also have right to know of the Law. It is impossible for any Government to expect obedience to their Law without informing the people in legible form. It is more difficult especially when the text of Law is not available in easy accessible format. It will result in two major problems, (1) People will be kept in dark about their Laws, (2) Private Publishers will exploit this lack of access to Law to make money by publishing updating Acts as their copyrighted work. It is surprising that the Ministry has not used the Information technology to provide access to text of law.”
According to Information Commissioner Prof. M. Sridhar Acharyulu (Madabhushi Sridhar) giving this order, Section 4 mandates the Ministry of Law to place the texts of enactments. It is the duty of Legislative Department to provide information about access of every updated enactment. It is not just a recommended obligation under Section 4(1) (a) of RTI Act, but a constitutional mandate, a legal necessity, and an essential requirement for peace. It is not possible to imagine ‘enactment’ becoming secret because of this ambiguity and non-legibility.
Highlighting the importance of accessibility of law, Prof Sridhar cited an example. He said, “For instance, the Parliament by the Criminal Law(Amendment) Act, 2013, has amended section 100 of Indian Penal Code, which provide a right of private defence of body even to the extent of causing death in case of acid attack. Many men or women are not even aware of self defence right that they can even kill assailant if the later is attacking to kill, rape or throw acid, or cause grievous hurt, etc.”
The Hon’ble Delhi High Court first noted that in the present writ petition, it was averred that the respondent never filed an RTI application in the prescribed form and the requisite fee. It was also mentioned in the petition to the court that the respondent did not file the first appeal and hence the second appeal could not have been entertained by the CIC. However, rejecting the Appeal Justice Manmohan held: “This Court is not an appellate Court of the CIC. Technical and procedural arguments cannot be allowed to come in the way of substantial justice. The directions given by the CIC in the impugned order are not only fair and reasonable but also promote the concept of rule of law. It is unfortunate that the petitioner did not take the initiative on its own to upload the latest amended bare Acts.”
Justice Manmohan also said in his order that the public could be expected to follow the law only if law was easily accessible ‘at the click of a button’. In fact, as rightly pointed out by the CIC, the RTI Act itself mandates the Government to place the texts of enactments in public domain, he also declared in his order.
As well as rejecting the appeal, Justice Manmohan also directed that the costs of ` 10,000/- which was directed to be paid by the CIC, should be recovered from the salary of the government official who authorised unnecessary writ petition against the CIC order.
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