PREM ANAND Vs. COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has filed the present writ petition seeking to challenge the impugned circular, dated 27.03.2012 issued by the Commissioner of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Department. By the impugned circular dated 27.03.2012, the Commissioner of HR&CE informed all Zonal Joint Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners of the HR&CE Department that in respect of temples in which hereditary trustees are administering the temple as well as where there are scheme decrees, the trustees of the concerned temple were appointed as Public Information Officers. This became necessary because of the delay that caused in getting information from those temples for an information seeker and that a recommendation was also made by the Tamil Nadu Information Commission.

(2.) THE contention raised by the petitioner was that a temple coming under the purview of the HR&CE department is not an administrative unit or an office of a public authority. Therefore, it cannot be brought under the definition of Section 2(h) of the Right to Information Act. Reliance was placed upon a judgment of the Kerala High Court in W.P.(C)No.30470 of 2008, dated 11.3.2011 in Bhanunni Vs. Commissioner, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (Admn.) Department reported in 2011 (2) KLT 312.

(3.) FURTHER, once it is held that the temple is covered by the provisions of the RTI Act, certainly the unit will have to have a public information officer. In respect of hereditary temple as well as a unit run by scheme decrees, the information is solely available only with the trustees or the trust board. It is too much for the executive officer to seek an information from those trustees and thereafter pass on the information to an information seeker. As rightly found in the impugned order, having dual authority will only create bottlenecks in the free flow of the information. As to what information is to be provided is also circumscribed by the provisions of the RTI Act. Hence they can always take such defences as are open to them. Even if the information officer direct an information to be furnished, that can be subject matter of further appeals to the appellate authority as well as second appeal to the Information Commission.