S. ROBINSON Vs. TAMIL NADU STATE INFORMATION COMMISSION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioner has approached this Court invoking Art. 226 of the Constitution of India seeking quashment of the order passed by the 1st respondent in Case No. 6114/Enquiry/F/13(40062/F/2012) dated 05.02.2014, and consequently to direct the 3rd respondent to furnish the information and copies of the documents claimed by the petitioner in his application.

(2.) The case of the petitioner is that he preferred an application on 08.06.2012 under Sec. 6(1) of the Right to Information Act, 2005, (hereinafter referred to as RTI Act) before the third respondent, seeking certain information regarding two registered sale deeds dated 06.01890 and 05.10.1908. In response to the RTI application, it appears the third respondent passed an order on 09.06.2012 furnishing information, not to the satisfaction of the petitioner. The petitioner was therefore constrained to file appeal before the second respondent under Sec. 19(1) of the RTI Act vide memorandum of appeal dated 27.06.201 The said appeal came to be rejected by the second respondent on the basis of instruction received from the Inspector General of Registration. Thereafter, the petitioner filed second appeal before the first respondent on 25.08.201 However, the first respondent vide its proceedings dated 05.02014 dismissed the second appeal, which is impugned in the present writ proceedings. According to the first respondent, the information which is sought by the petitioner would be ascertained from the respective department and therefore, such an application under RTI Act cannot be entertained and therefore held that the second and third respondents have rightly taken decisions, refusing to furnish the information as sought by the petitioner. Number of grounds have been raised in this petition assailing the order passed by the respondents.

(3.) Mr. C. Arul Vadivel @ Sekar, the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner would principally submit that the provisions of the RTI Act have an overriding effect over other laws and therefore, the order passed by the first respondent refusing information cannot be sustained in law. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner would emphasis the fact that Right to Information Act was defined under Sec. 2(j) of the RTI Act would include all kinds of information and therefore, there cannot any restriction on dissemination of information sought by the petitioner. He also heavily relied on Sec. 4 and 22 of the Act. Sec. 4 imposes obligations on the part of the public authorities, particularly under sub-sections (2), (3) and (4) of Sec. 4 of the Act. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner also heavily relied on Sec. 22 of the RTI Act, which reads as follows: