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Judgment
B.S. Verma, J.
(Stay Application No. 8050 of 2010)
Heard learned Counsel for the parties and perused the record.
By means of this writ petition, the petitioner has sought a writ in the nature of certiorari quashing the order dated 30-8-2010 (Annexure-1) passed by respondent No. 1, whereby the appeal of respondent No. 2 was allowed and the petitioner-Public Information Officer was directed to provide complete information as per the records to respondent No. 2 before 20th September 2010 and a notice was also issued to the petitioner u/s 20(1) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (for short the Act) to show cause why penalty be not imposed against the petitioner for not supplying the complete required information to the respondent No. 2 within 30 days as required by law.
Learned Counsel appearing for the petitioner has contended that the information sought by the respondent No. 2 is a third party information and the same cannot be supplied in view of Sections 8(1)(j) and 11 of the Act.
A perusal of the record shows that information which were sought by the respondent No. 2 are as under:
1- Is the National Security Firm registered with the Provident Fund Organization Haldwani? If yes, please provide the registration number and the address of the headquarters of the company.
2- Certified copy of the list of officials who have been given PF accounts in the past one year?
3- Has a PF account been maintained under the appellant''s name (respondent No. 2''s name) through the company? If yes, then please provide the PF No. and the amount of money deposited in the account.
4- What actions are taken against the mentioned firm if the mentioned firm is not registered?
5- If the head of the mentioned company has not deposited the PF amount of its employees in their respective accounts, then what actions are taken against it?
Admittedly the petitioner is a Public Information Officer of the Employees Provident Fund Organization. There is no disputed to the fact that the firm in respect of which information was sought by respondent No. 2 is registered with the Employees Provident Fund Organization.
Section 2(f) of the Act definition "information" as under:
(f) "information" means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force;
In my view, the information as sought by the Respondent No. 2 from the petitioner-Public Information Officer are not covered under either of the exemptions mentioned in Section 8 including that under Clause (j) of Sub-section (1) of Section 8 of the Act, since the information has been sought by respondent No. 2, who is an employee of the firm, for ascertaining the amount deducted by the firm under the statutory obligation to be deposited with the Employees Provident Fund Organization as per provisions of the Employees'' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952. The learned Counsel for the petitioner could not demonstrate before the Court as to how the information sought for by the respondent No. 2 would be treated as a confidential record of the third party as envisaged by Section 11 of the Act.
Having gone through the entire material on record and having heard the submissions of the learned Counsel for the petitioner, I find that the information sought by the respondent No. 2 were available with the petitioner-Organization and the second appellate authority-respondent No. 1 has rightly passed the impugned order thereby directing the petitioner to supply the information as sought for by the respondent No. 2, who was appellant before the respondent No. 1. The order impugned does not call for any interference by this Court. The writ petition being devoid of merit must fail.
The writ petition is dismissed summarily. However, the petitioner may file its objection/reply against the show cause notice, which was issued by the respondent No. 1-Central Information Commissioner New Delhi pertaining to levy of penalty on the petitioner. It is further directed that the information shall be furnished by the petitioner to the respondent No. 2 within a period of one week from today, pursuant to the order passed by respondent No. 1.
Certified copy of this order be issued to the learned Counsel for the parties by tomorrow on payment of usual charges.