Judicial review is an integral part of the constitutional framework, and violations of natural justice in administrative actions are subject to review.

1. This writ petition is directed against the order dated 10.05.2010 passed by the Tripura Information Commission whereby it has allowed the appeal filed by the information seeker (respondent No. 5 herein) and has held that he is entitled to the information sought by him.

2. The main grounds of challenge raised by the petitioner who is the person whose information was sought is that the information is covered by S.8(j) of the Right to Information Act . His second contention is that the order has been passed in violation of S.19(4) of the Act since no notice was issued to the petitioner before passing the order. The last contention on behalf of the petitioner is that the Tripura Information Commission has condoned the delay in filing the petition without issuing notice to any party and therefore, the rules of natural justice have been violated.

3. The facts giving rise to this petition are that the information seeker sought information relating to the date of birth, place of birth and other particulars with regard to the birth certificate of the petitioner herein and also copy of the declaration of his nationality and his scheduled tribe Certificate etc. The Principal Information Officer declined to give this information on the grounds that this information was exempted from being handed over to any other person in terms of S.8(1)(e) and S.8(1)(j) and S.11 of the Act. The appeal filed by the information seeker (respondent No. 5 herein) was also rejected.
It would be pertinent to mention that both the Principal Information Officer and the Appellate authority heard the petitioner before deciding the matter. Thereafter, the information seeker filed a second appeal to the State Information Commission. We have perused the records of the State; Information Commission and we find that admittedly there was delay in filing the second appeal. The respondent No. 5 who was the appellant before the State Information Commission sent a fax message on 01.04.2010 addressed to the Commission wherein he stated that he had not filed the appeal within the stipulated period of 90 days and he gave reasons why he could not do so. This fax message was entertained on 1st April, 2010 itself and this message was made part of the record and on the basis of this fax message the delay was condoned even before issuing notice to the parties who were made respondents in the appeal i.e. the first appellate authority and the State Public Information Officer. As far as the present petitioner is concerned, he was not even made a party in the said appeal.

4. We may firsts deal with the preliminary objection raised by Mr. Somik Deb. His preliminary submission is twofold but is based on S.23 of the Act which reads as follows : -
'23. Bar of jurisdiction of Courts. - No Court shall entertain any suit, application or other proceedings in respect of any order made under this Act and no such order shall be called in question otherwise than by way of an appeal under this Act.'

5. Mr. Deb submits that in view of the bar contained in S.23, no Court including the High Court can entertain any proceedings and writ petitions are also proceedings and therefore, no proceedings lie before the High Court against any order of the State Information Commission. The Second limb of his argument is that even if the writ jurisdiction of the High Court is not ousted, the same can only be exercised only when there is complete lack of jurisdiction in the State Information Commissioner and merely because the jurisdiction has been exercised rightly or wrongly is not a ground to interfere in the order of the State Information Commissioner. These arguments have been raised only for the purpose of being rejecte