JUDGMENT :

1. The High Court of Gujarat on its administrative side has filed this petition with a prayer that the action of the respondent no.1 i.e. Gujarat Information Commission directing the petitioner to provide information and documents to the remaining points, available be declared as illegal and violative of the provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (for short ‘the Act’). A further direction is prayed to quash and set aside the judgment dated 23.06.2016 passed by the respondent No.1 in Appeal No.769 of 2014.

2. Facts in brief indicate that the respondent no.2 who is a Judicial Officer submitted an application on 17.02.2014, seeking information in reference to 21 points. The application was received by the Public Information Officer on 18.02.2014. On 19.02.2014 a money order was received. Thereafter, the Public Information Officer initiated a correspondence with the concerned department for collecting the information as sought for by the respondent no.2 that involved a considerable time.

3. Aggrieved by the action of the Public Information Officer, the respondent no.2 filed First Appeal No.37 of 2014 on 11.04.2014 before the Appellate Authority. He contended that information with regard to certain items viz. item nos.1 to 5, 7, 8, 12 and 13 had not been provided. On hearing the parties, on 16.06.2014, the Public Information Officer addressed a reply to the respondent no.2 providing the details of the information sought by him. In reference to some of the points for which the information was not provided, specific reasons were given. As a result of such information being provided in part and assigning reasons for not being available to provide certain information, the Appellate Authority rejected appeal of the respondent no.2. While rejecting the appeal the Appellate Authority observed that as far as information pertaining to points 1 to 6, 7, 8, 12 and 14 had already been provided and with regard to the other remaining points i.e. point no.9, 10, 14, 15 and 18 since the information was personal in nature, could not be provided and the information sought on points 17 and 19 was not available on record and certain other information was not clear and hence the appeal was rejected.

4. Aggrieved by the order of the First Appellate Authority dated 19.06.2014, the respondent no.2 filed an appeal before the respondent no.1. By the impugned order dated 23.06.2014, the Appellate Authority has passed a judgment directing the Public Information Officer to provide the remaining information available to the respondent no.2 within 15 days from the receipt of the order. It is on this ground that the petition has been filed.

5. Mr.Hemang Shah learned advocate for the petitioner submitted that the Information Commission could not direct the respondent to provide the information which it could not provide as it pertained to third party and in view of the embargo imposed in Section 8(1)(j) of the Act, it was rightly not provided. Reading Section 8(1)(j) of the Act, Mr.Shah would submit that the first part stipulates that personal information which has no relationship with any public activity or interest need not be disclosed. The second part indicates that any information which cause unwarranted invasion of privacy of an individual should not be disclosed unless the third part is satisfied and the third part of the section indicates that information which causes invasion to privacy of an individual will not be disclosed in larger public interest. He would therefore submit that the information was initially not causing as it was providing unwarranted invasion of privacy of any individual. He submitted that the reliance placed on Section 11 on behalf of the respondent no.2 as well as the Public Information Officer had no intent to disclose the third party information and there was therefore no breach of that section.

5.1 In support of his submissions, Mr.Shah would rely on the following decisions:

(I) In case of Girish Ramchandra Deshpand