The court upheld that public officers must comply with RTI obligations, and failure to do so incurs penalties as per the law.

1. The petitioner, who is the second opposite party in Complaint Petition No. 1333(I) / 2011 / SIC before the State Information Commission, Kerala, has filed this writ petition seeking to quash Exhibit P3 provisional order dated 20.01.2012 and Exhibit P5 final order dated 15.03.2012 passed by the Commission under S.20(1) and S.20(2) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (''Act, 2005'' for short), whereby he was imposed with a fine of Rs.20,000/- for not furnishing the information to the 4th respondent namely one Jackson Roy and for other consequential reliefs.

2. Brief material facts for the disposal of the writ petition are as follows:
The petitioner is the Director of Fire and Rescue Services, Thiruvananthapuram. The third respondent namely Sri. A. Shajahan is the Public Information Officer attached to the said office. The second respondent is the Appellate Authority of the Fire and Rescue Services having its Headquarters at Thiruvananthapuram.

3. The 4th respondent - Sri. Jackson Roy, submitted an application under the Act, 2005 seeking certain information regarding the buildings in the State having a height of more than 15 meters, before the Public Information Officer - respondent No.3. According to the writ petitioner, since no information was received within the time stipulated under the Act, 2005, the 4th respondent approached the State Information Commission - respondent No.1. Thereupon, the Public Information Officer - third respondent, submitted a report dated 16.09.2011 before the State Information Commission stating that the 4th respondent, the complainant, had visited the office of the Commandant General, Fire and Rescue Services on 06.08.2011 and perused the files and taken copies of the relevant records.

4. It is further pointed out that the Public Information Officer had assured that he was prepared to furnish copies of whatever records the 4th respondent wanted. Later, on 04.10.2011, the complainant made another complaint before the State Information Commission that the documents sought by him were not available to him. In the said complaint, it was alleged that on 05.08.2011, he went to the office of the Fire and Rescue Services and got some of the documents and that even though he waited there from 10.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. on that day, he was not given copies of the rest of the documents or permitted to peruse the same.

5. On receipt of the above complaint, the State Information Commission has issued notice to respondents 2 and 3 i.e., the Appellate Authority and the Public Information Officer. According to the petitioner, the third respondent filed an affidavit before the Information Commission stating that since the information sought for by the 4th respondent relates to the technical information about the ''No Objection Certificate'', the file was submitted to the Director (Technical) on 06.07.2011.

6. It is also stated therein that as per S.5(5) of the Act, 2005, the Director (Technical) is the person who has to deal with the file and that since the file was not returned, three supplementary files were submitted to the Director (Technical) on 26.07.2011, 06.08.2011 and 22.08.2011 and those files were also not returned so far. It was also submitted before the Commission that even though notice was given by the Appellate Authority - second respondent to the petitioner herein about the posting of the case, he has not cared to appear before the Commission.

7. The contention advanced by the petitioner is that the statements made in the affidavit filed by the third respondent Public Information Officer, are not correct. It is further pointed