Overview

• Justice V. Narasingh set aside the Commission’s February 2024 dismissal of an RTI appeal, citing a failure to examine the record.
• The court remitted the case to the State Information Commission for a fresh, merits-based hearing to be concluded preferably within 45 days.
• It ordered the Tahasildar of Bhadrak to pay ₹50,000 to petitioner Hemanta Nayak, with the state allowed to recover the sum from responsible officials.
• The judge criticized the Commission for mechanically accepting the state’s contradictory stance that information was both unavailable and already supplied, warning the RTI law would become a “dead letter.”
• Invoking Kafka’s The Trial, the order noted a years-long struggle for records tied to alleged encroachment of a community pond in Kuansh village that began with a 2017 representation and a 2018 RTI.