The main legal point established in the judgment is that the power to impose penalties and initiate disciplinary action against Public Information Officers entirely vests on the Information Commission as per Section 20 of the Right to Information Act.

1. The petitioner in the first two Writ Petition is the Sub Inspector of Police, Anakkavur Police Station, Tiruvannamalai. In both the Writ Petitions, namely W.P.Nos.3776 and 3777 of 2013, the petitioner is seeking for a direction to the 1st respondent, namely the Chief Secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu to institute disciplinary proceedings against the 2nd respondent (respective 2nd respondents, who have been made as party by their individual name and not in the name of the office held by them). The 2nd respondent in W.P.No.3776 of 2013 is the Public Information Officer attached to the office of the Director General of Police. The 2nd respondent in W.P.No.3777 of 2013 is the Public Information Officer cum Deputy Secretary to Governor of Tamil Nadu, Raj Bhavan, Chennai. The prayer of the petitioner is that as they provided false information, the respective contesting respondents should be imposed with penalty of Rs.25,000/-and also appropriate disciplinary action should be initiated against them.

2. In the third Writ Petition (W.P.No.3778 of 2013), the petitioner described himself as President of the Association of Transparency and Anti Corruption and he has also filed the Writ Petition seeking for a direction to institute disciplinary action against the contesting 2nd respondent, who is the Public Information Officer cum Deputy Secretary to the Governor of Tamil Nadu.

3. In all these Writ Petitions, the petitioners have moved the Public Information Officers attached to the Department concerned and not satisfied with the reply given by the Public Information Officer, they had also moved the Tamil Nadu Information Commission by way of Second Appeals.

4. In the first Writ Petition, Tamil Nadu Information Commission by its order dated 1.11.2010 disposed of the second appeal filed by the petitioner stating that the application sent by the petitioner was not received by the office of the Director General of Police and also the Public Information Officer. Therefore, in order to give one more opportunity to the petitioner, the Commission, after giving copy of the petition to the two Officers, directed the Officers to provide the information to the petitioner within 15 days and the Second Appeal was closed. It is pursuant to the direction issued, the 2nd respondent by communication dated 29.11.2010 gave certain information to the petitioner.

5. Similarly, in W.P.No.3777 of 2013, the petitioner preferred a further appeal to the appellate authority and as against the reply given by the appellate authority, a second appeal was filed to the Information Commission. The second appeal was disposed of on 24.5.2012. In the second appeal, the Commission found that the petitioner did not appear for the enquiry, whereas the Public Information Officer was present and thereafter the Commission also noted that in the enquiry held on 17.8.2011, the concerned person appeared and informed the Chairman of the Commission that he should not conduct the enquiry. Referring to the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Central Board of Secondary Education and another vs. Aditya Bandopadhyay and others reported in 2011 (8) SCC 497, the Commission recorded that the petitioner was abusing the process of law and his only intention is to make complaints against the Commission and he continues to make insinuating or defamatory remarks against the Commission. Therefore, the Commission passed an order that the Commission should not receive any order from the petitioner concerned. This is the subject matter of the second Writ Petition.

6. In the third Writ Petition, as against the order passed by the Public Information Officer, an appeal was filed and thereafter, a second appeal was filed to the Information Commission. The Information Commission on the appeal called for remarks from the 2nd respondent and the 2nd respondent communicated his reply dated 24.9.2012. It was informed that no information about the complaint made by the petitioner was available wi