Orissa High Court overturns OIC ruling against former exam controller

The Odisha Information Commission’s ruling fining a former Board of Secondary Education, Odisha examination controller Rs 12,750 for failing to provide information to a requester within 51 days of receiving their request under the RTI Act has been overturned by the Orissa High Court.

Approximately thirteen years ago, a petition against the Commission’s order was submitted. Under the RTI, Prasanna Kumar Mishra, the petitioner, had requested information about history, geography, and Sanskrit answer scripts when Dr. Ardhendu Sekhar Bhol was the test controller from November 13, 2007, to October 1, 2008. Bhol filed a complaint at the high court against the Commission’s August 24, 2011, judgment imposing the punishment.

The single-judge bench of Justice KR Mohapatra declared on April 5 that the Commission had misinterpreted the petitioner’s show-cause reply when nullifying the Commission’s ruling. In his show-cause reply, the petitioner made it clear that he was not given the authority or obligation to provide the requested information. Nothing in the file indicates that the petitioner was involved in the process of obtaining the requested information. Given that, this court believes that the contested order is unsustainable as it disregards the materials that are on file and violates the natural justice standards.

In his response to the Commission’s show cause notice, Bhol made it clear that he was neither the public information officer (PIO) or the referral PIO, therefore he was in no way obligated to provide the penalty, according to the high court judgment. The secretary and president of BSE, Odisha were in possession of all the records from which the requested information was retrieved.

Bhol said that his only duty was to carry out the examination. He went on to say that the rain had harmed the response scripts. The Board’s evaluation of the response scripts was thus delayed.