TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2008 (2) TMI 787
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.... the State Information Commission, Haryana (for brevity, 'the Commission'), imposing a penalty of Rs. 19,250/- by invoking the provisions of Section 20(1) of the Act for 77 days delay in furnishing the information in accordance with mandatory provisions of sub-section (1) of Section 7 of the Act. 2. Brief facts of the case are that applicant-respondent No. 3 made an application dated 16-10-2006 for seeking specified information from the petitioner. However, information was not furnished to the respondent No. 3. On 1-2-2007 only a part of information was given and the supplementary information was made available to him on 14-2-2007. After waiting for some time, applicant-respondent No. 3 had filed an appeal before the Commission on 1....
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....e order dated 16-10-2007 reads thus :- "After hearing the respondent and perusal of the record, it is held that respondent has not been able to show that he had acted diligently or delay occurred due to reasonable cause. In fact, SPIO has acted in most casual manner in processing the application with the result that there has been a delay of 77 days in furnishing the information. A perusal of the record show that the application was sent by SPIO in original to the concerned branch without any instructions for obtaining the information from them. SPIO took no notice of the fact no information had been sent by the concerned branch till 4-12-2006. Even after the receipt of information on 4-12-2006, it was only on 1-2-2007 that partial infor....
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....ent upon the State Government to train the petitioner by encouraging their participation in the development and organisation of programmes as envisaged by Section 26(1)(a) of the Act. Learned counsel has insisted that in the absence of any such programmes, having been organised to train the Public Information Officer like the petitioner, the Commission should have taken a lenient view by sparing the petitioner from imposition of such a penalty. Learned counsel has lastly submitted that no second appeal was maintainable without first filing. The first appeal before the authority constituted by the Kurukshetra University. 4. We have thoughtfully considered the respective submissions made by the learned counsel and are unable to accept....
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....) of Section 20 of the Act makes it obvious that the Commission could impose the penalty for the simple reasons of delay in furnishing the information within the period specified by sub-section (1) of Section 7 of the Act. According to sub-section (1) of Section 7 of the Act, a period of 30 days has been provided for furnishing of information. If the information is not furnished within the time specified by sub-section (1) of Section 7 of the Act then under sub-section (1) of Section 20 of the Act, public authorities failing in furnishing the requisite information could be penalised. It is true that in cases of intentional delay, the same provision could be invoked but in cases where there is simple delay the Commission has been clothed wit....
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....Section 20 of the Act on the excuse that any training programme as envisaged by sub-section (1)(a) of Section 26 of the Act has not been organised by the Government encouraging participation of the petitioners in the development and organisation of programmes. Therefore, we do not find any merit in the second contention raised by the learned counsel. 7. The last contention that second appeal cannot be filed, does not require any detailed consideration because a perusal of Section 19(3) of the Act shows that after waiting for a period of 90 days, the applicant seeking information is entitled to invoke the power of Second Appellate Authority. 8. It has come on record that applicant-respondent No. 3 had originally filed applica....