Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 6: In a landmark judgment, State High Court today said that State Information Commission has the power to decide review petition.
The judgment was passed in a petition filed by Rajeev Gupta, who at the relevant time was posted as the Executive Engineer, PHE (Mech) Procurement, Division, Jammu and had been designated as PIO under the Act.
On a complaint filed by an information seeker, namely, Dineshwar Singh Jamwal, the State Information Commission, vide its order dated 30.07.2012 imposed penalty of Rs 25,000 on the petitioner and by the same order granted him liberty to file a review application for review of the order under Sub Rule (4) of Rule 36 of the Rules of 2010.
The petitioner filed the review application on 28.08.2012. As the review application was not decided, the petitioner filed writ petition seeking direction to the respondent to dispose of his review application.
In its reply to the writ petition, the respondent (SIC) took the stand that it lacks jurisdiction to decide the review application due to coming into force of 2012 Rules and repeal of the Rules of 2010 with effect from 30.08.2012.
After hearing Advocate Vilakashan Singh for the petitioner whereas Advocate SK Anand for State Information Commission, Justice Janak Raj Kotwal observed, “the judgment cited by counsel for respondent, does not support the stand of the respondent because it does not deal with a situation arising from repeal of a provision allowing review of an order. It rather states and reiterates that power to review is not an inherent power and must be conferred by law”.
With these observations, Justice Janak Raj Kotwal disposed of the petition with the direction to the State Information Commission to decide and dispose of the review application filed by the petitioner.
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