[2026:RJ-JP:10581]

HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN BENCH AT JAIPUR S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 1631/2026 Chitranjan Meena S/o Shri D.R. Meena, Aged About 50 Years, R/o Sector-3 House No. 8, Malviya Nagar, Jaipur, Rajasthan.

----Petitioner Versus State Public Information Officer Cum Deputy Secretary, To The Government Personnel (Ka3/enquiry) Department, Government Secretariat, Jaipur.

----Respondent For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Govind Gupta For Respondent(s) :

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE GANESH RAM MEENA

Order

12/03/2026

1. The instant writ petition has been filed by the petitioner under Article 227 of the Constitution of India against the order dated 21.11.2025 passed by the Rajasthan State Information Commission (for short, ‘respondent’) in Appeal No. 014314/2025, whereby the appeal filed by the petitioner was rejected.

2. The brief facts of the case are that the petitioner filed an application on 18.06.2025 seeking information regarding the departmental inquiry proceedings related to his late father Shri D.R. Meena with respect to the order of the Hon’ble Governor. The respondent, in its reply dated 15.07.2025, stated that the file sought by the petitioner is 46-years old and could not be found in the departmental records.

In response to this, the petitioner preferred a first appeal under Section 19(1) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (for short, ‘the Act of 2005’) which was rejected on 29.08.2025. Subsequently, a second appeal was filed by the petitioner under Section 19(3) of the Act of 2005 which also came to be dismissed on 21.11.2025.

3. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the file, sought by the petitioner, is linked to other files, which were already provided earlier under the Act of 2005. He further submits that the file was required by the petitioner within the required time limit for his personal reasons, in order to prepare his defence in a revenue case.

4. Considered the submissions made by the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner and also perused the material made available on record.

5. In the light of the submissions made by learned counsel for the petitioner and the facts on record, the substantial question which arose for consideration is: ‘Whether the impugned order is liable to be quashed when the required information could not be fetched, as being related to a 46-years old document?’

6. The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Central Board of Secondary Education v. Aditya Bandopadhyay, (2011) 8 SCC 497 observed as under:-

“67. Indiscriminate and impractical demands or directions under the RTI Act for disclosure of all and sundry information (unrelated to transparency and accountability in the functioning of public authorities and eradication of corruption) would be counterproductive as it will adversely affect the efficiency of the administration and result in the executive getting bogged down with the non- productive work of collecting and furnishing information. The Act should not be allowed to be misused or abused, to become a tool to obstruct the national development and integration, or to destroy the peace, tranquillity and harmony among its citizens. Nor should it be converted into a tool of oppression or intimidation of honest officials striving to do their duty. The nation does not want a scenario where 75% of the staff of public authorities spends 75% of their time in collecting and furnishing information to applicants instead of discharging their regular duties. The threat of penalties under the RTI Act and the pressure of the authorities under the RTI Act should not lead to employees of a public authorities prioritising “information furnishing”, at the cost of their normal and regular duties.”

7. Keeping in view the aforementioned legal precedent of the Hon’ble Apex Court and also taking into consideration the factual matrix of the case and so also, the prayer made in this petition, the Court deems it just to not interfere with the impugned order. In the present case, the respondent