This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been moved by the petitioner praying for setting aside and quashing the order dated 28-08-2014 passed by the learned State Information Commission, Itanagar in Case No. APIC-41/2014, whereby the Commission declared the Indira Gandhi Technological and Medical Sciences University, Ziro, as a Public Authority and falls under the ambit of RTI Act, 2005.

2. The fact of the case, in brief, is that the respondent No.2, namely, Dr. Nani Bath, Department of Political Science, Rajiv Gandhi University, Rono Hill, Doimukh filed an application to the Registrar of the petitioner’ University seeking certain information and documents under the RTI Act. The Registrar of the petitioner’s University verbally informed the respondent No.2 that the Indira Gandhi Technological and Medical Sciences University being a private university do not come under the ambit of the RTI Act, 2005, for which, the documents sought for by the respondent No.2 cannot be furnished to him under the said Act.

3. Being aggrieved with the verbal information with regard to non furnishing of the documents, the respondent No.2 has approached the State Information Commissioner i.e. respondent No.1 by filing a petition in the form of an appeal, which was registered as State Information Commission Case No.

APIC-41/2014. The learned Member of the State Information Commission after hearing both the parties, disposed of the said appeal petition vide order dated 28-08-2014 holding that the petitioner’s University is a public authority and falls under the ambit of the RTI Act, 2005 and also directed the Registrar of the said University to provide/furnish all the information as sought for by the respondent No.2. Being aggrieved with the said decision of the State Information Commission, the petitioner has preferred this writ petition praying for setting aside the said decision as stated earlier.

4. I have heard Mr. A.K. Roy, learned counsels for the petitioner. Also heard Mr. R. Saikia, learned Standing Counsel for the State Election Commission/respondent No.1 and Mr. T.T. Tara, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent No.2.

5. The learned counsel for the petitioner, Mr. A.K Roy, has submitted that the Indira Gandhi Technological and Medical Sciences University is a private University established under the Act No. 6 of 2012 by the Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly for providing vocational, professional including technological and medical education facilities. The said University is a private university, which is run by the World Institution Building Programme and the same is a Non- Government Organization (NGO). The said organization has established the petitioner’s university by funding support from their own to run the university including all infrastructure of the university. It has also been submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the university has not received or taken any grant or financial aid from the Government under subsection 5 of the Clause 22 of the Schedule of the Indira Gandhi Technological and Medical Sciences University Act, 2012.

6. The learned counsel for the petitioner, in support of Section 15 of the Act of 2012, has submitted that the said Act only states about the structure but the Government has no any control over the management, finance and/or education of the University. Only two representatives of the Government of Arunachal Pradesh have been nominated as members of the University and the rest of the members are from the World Institution Building Prgramme. The University is a fully private organization and has discretion in all respect of finance like; salaries, fees structure, investment and admission etc., neither substantially financed nor it was owned and controlled by the State Government, which cannot be termed as a public authority. Thus, the main contention of the petitioner is that it is not a public authority coming within the definition clause under Sec

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