JUDGMENT

The grievance of the petitioners is that without putting them on notice, a direction to initiate disciplinary action for imposing major penalty has been directed in Ext.P4 order, which is not warranted under Section 20 of the Right to Information Act , 2005. The petitioners rely on the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court inManohar vs. State of Maharashtra and Another [2012 KHC 4771] which has been followed by a learned Single Judge of this Court in P.N.Praveen Kumar vs. State Information Commissioner and Another in W.P(C).No.25864 of 2011 . In Ext.P4 order in Paragraph 27(1)

(c) the Commission has directed as follows:

“This Commission also direct the Director of General Education to authorize a senior officer not below the rank of an Additional Director to conduct a detailed, thorough, & meaningful inquiry into the matter of the 'missing' files (especially file no's: G/992/2019, G/390/2015, G/184/2019, & B/2638/2019) in the O/o. the AEO Alathur, Palakkad District and initiate regular departmental action for major penalty proceedings against all the officials responsible for the loss/missing/misplacemen