Disciplinary actions under the Right to Information Act require adherence to natural justice principles, mandating that parties be provided notice before initiating penalties.

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/misplacement of the aforesaid files; and also initiate appropriate regular departmental action for major penalty proceedings against the then 2nd Respondent-FAA/AEO Alathur for the delayed disposal of the first appeal dt. 05/12/2019 & non-disposal of the first appeal dated: 16/01/2020 of the Appellant within the stipulated time; and also initiate major penalty proceedings against Sri.CK Udayan, Senior Superintendent, O/o. the AEO Alathur, Palakkad District for having remained absent before this Commission during the hearing conducted on: 23/11/2022 without any proper reason despite of prior notice and being present in the office, and against Sri.P.K.Rose Wish, Senior Superintendent, O/o. the AEO Shoranur, Palakkad District for having unauthorizedly present before this Commission on behalf of the 1st respondent- SPIO during the hearing conducted on: 23/11/2022 without any proper reason. A copy of the inquiry report along with the action taken report shall be provided to this Commission as well as to the Appellant- Applicant within a period of two months from the date of receipt of this order”.

2. The only reasons stated for conducting departmental action for major penalty proceedings against the petitioners are that the 1^st petitioner had remained absent before the Commission during the hearing on 23.11.2022 without any proper reason despite prior notice for being present and the 2^nd petitioner was unauthorizedly present before the Commission during the hearing without any proper reason. Admittedly, before such an order was issued notice had not been issued on the proposed action to the petitioners to show cause as to why they were absent or why they were present. According to the Counsel for the Commission, the Commission can initiate action if there is any obstruction in any manner in furnishing the information. None of the other factors on which action can be taken would apply in this case. Even if action is to be taken for obstruction, the petitioners should be informed about the manner in which they obstructed the furnishing of information. No such factum is present in paragraph 27 (1) (c) which has been extracted. The judgment of the Apex Court in Manohar (Supra) very clearly says that action can be initiated only after issuing notice to the persons since it has civil consequences. Though the principles of natural justice have not been specifically included in Section 20 , the Hon'ble Supreme Court has said that the same has to be read in the provisions. Ext.P4 to that extent is bad and Paragraph 27 (1) (c) is set aside to the extent it directs action against the petitioners. Even though the counsel for the additional 6^th respondent sought to justify the order passed, I do not think that the impleading petitioner can have any locus in a matter relating to