The Madhya Pradesh High Court has sought an affidavit from the MP State Information Commission asking to mention under which provision of the RTI Act the information commissioner is authorized to issue direction to the conduct departmental inquiry against a petitioner primary school teacher.
With this the high court stayed the order of Information Commissioner Vijay Manohar Tiwari of 17/8/2021 with regard to the direction of conducting inquiry against petitioner a primary school teacher Vivekanand Mishra.
A bench of Justice Vivek Agrawal ordered ‘Let affidavit of the Commission be also brought on record in this regard and if the Commission fails to show the provision then, it be informed that why exemplary cost be not imposed upon the Commission for exceeding its jurisdiction’.
‘In the meanwhile, operation of order dated 17.08.2021 to the extent that it directs conducting an enquiry against the petitioner shall remain stayed, till next date of hearing’, the court order of 8/12/2022 said.
The court order further said ‘Information Commission will also file its affidavit under which provision of the Act he was authorized to issue direction for conduct of enquiry against the petitioner’.
The petitioner’s counsel Dinesh Upadhyay said the petitioner filed an appeal before the MP State Information Commission after the school education department denied him documents of the inquiry report despite requests.
The Commission directed the District Education Officer to furnish information required by the petitioner within a period of one month failing which provisions of Section 20(1) of Right to Information Act 2005 will attract but at the same time ordered to conduct departmental inquiry against the petitioner/applicant for developing pressure to seek information related to findings of inquiry by using the provisions of right to information, Upadhyay said.
The court served notices on the Commission and others and sought reply within four weeks.
