Amitha Muraleedharan
The Delhi High court criticised the Central Information Commission for dealing with and disposing of the appeal under the Right to Information Act in a “cryptic manner.”
Observing the case, Justice Navin Chawla remanded the matter back to the Commission with a direction to settle the appeal with reason.
Earlier, SR Dass, the petitioner of the case, requested the details, under the Right to Information Act, of the companies which participated in the tender process issued by GAIL regarding the opening of the financial bid and quoted price of all the companies, etc.
But, the appeal was denied by the first Appellate Authority under Section 8 (1) (d) of the RTI Act, 2005, and the reason given was that the request contained confidential details of the commercial aspects of the party by CPIO, GAIL.
In the second appeal, Chief Information Commissioner Bimal Julka ordered the CPIO to ‘explain the updated status’ to the appellant under the RTI Act, 2005 within 30 days.
But, the petitioner moved to the High Court under the writ jurisdiction stating that the impugned order did not decide the appeal.
Advocates Aditya Jain and Neha Gyamlani appeared for the petitioner and Advocates Aman Singh Bakshi, Gaurang Kanth, Puneet Taneja, and Manmohan Singh Narula for the defendant.