Deepak Gupta, J.:- The short question which arises for decision in the present case is whether the State Information Commission to be constituted under the Right to Information Act, 2005, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) can be a single member body or must be a multi member body.

2. The petitioner has filed this writ petition alleging that the State of Himachal Pradesh has only appointed the Chief Information Commissioner and has not appointed any State Information Commis-sioner(s) and, therefore, the constitution of the Station Information Commission is illegal and not in accordance with Section 15 (2) of the Act, which reads as follows.- "15(1) xxxxxxx (2) The State Information Commission shall consist of- (a) the State Chief Information Commissioner; and (b) such number of State Information Commissioners, not exceeding ten, as may be deemed necessary."

3. The contention of the petitioner is that the State Information Commission must consist of a Chief Information Commissioner and at least one State Information Commissioner. On the other hand, the contention of the respondents as put forth by Mr. R. S. Cheema, learned Senior Advocate, appearing for the State of Himachal Pradesh is that it is not incumbent upon the State to appoint a State Information Commissioner. According to him the words "as may be deemed necessary" in Clause (b) of sub-section (2) of Section 15 vest discretion in the Government to appoint any number of State Information Commissioner up to a maximum of 10. It is contended that the State can, therefore, decide not to appoint any State Information Commissioner also.

4. On behalf of the respondents it is also contended that there is no justification for the appointment of any State Information Commissioner since the pending work in the State is very low and the appointment of another person would lead to unnecessary expense and wastage of public money.

5. As far as this contention is concerned, we cannot accept the stand of the respondents. Mr. Cheema has taken us through the provisions of the Act and the rules according to which the State has to provide certain facilities and staff to the State Information Commissioners. We are of the considered view that if under the provisions of the Act it is the mandate of Parliament that the State Information Commission should be a multi member body then the State cannot be allowed to plead that it be permitted to have a single member Commission on the ground that the work is less or that it would lead to unnecessary expenses.

6. Mr. R. S. Cheema, learned Senior Advocate appearing for the respondents, has also drawn our attention to Section 23 and has submitted that in the absence of clear demarcation of the powers of the State Chief Information Commissioner and the State Information Commissioners, no Information Commissioners can be appointed. We are not in agreement with this submission. It is for the State to lay down the procedure which can be in the form of regulations and, therefore, when the State appoints another State Information Commissioner, it can also lay down the manner in which power shall be exercised by this officer.

7. The only question which remains to be answered is the construction and meaning to be given to Section 15 (2) of the Act. It would be pertinent to note that the legislature in its wisdom has divided sub-section (2) into two clauses. Between the two clauses the conjunction "and" has been used. On a bare reading of the Act, it appears that the State Information Commission shall consist of the State Chief Information Commissioner and some State Information Commissioners. The maximum number of State Information Commissioners to be appointed is 10.

8. It is a cardinal principle of law of interpretation of statute that the words of a statute must be understood in their natural, ordinary or popular sense and construed according to their grammatical meaning, unless such construction leads to some absurdity or unless there is something in