In Md. Rizwan vs. The State of Bihar & Ors. (2026), Justice Raj Kumar delivered a 15-page long judgement dated August 11, 2026, wherein, he concluded:"19. Taking into consideration, that the application was made by the petitioner in 2009 for obtaining this document and till 2026 this small issue is yet to be resolved, matter must be set at rest and steps should be taken up by the authorities to comply with the directions of this Court within a period of eight weeks. 20. In view of discussions made above the writ petition stands allowed, orders passed by the appellate authority dated 06.01.2012 in Case No. 37744/2010-11 of State Information Commission and the letter dated 28.06.2011 issued by respondent no. 3/P.I.O.-cum-Circle Officer, Siwan, Sadar, are hereby quashed. 21. Respondents are thus directed to ensure compliance in view of the directions given in Paragraph-17 of this order. The entire exercise should be completed within a period of eight weeks from the date of this order. 22. The writ petition stands/allowed/disposed of in view of observations made aforesaid." The other five respondents are:2. The District Magistrate, Siwan, 3. The Circle Officer, Circle Office Siwan Sadar, Siwan, 4. The Circle Inspector cum Kanoongo, Circle Office Siwan Sadar, Siwan, 5. The Halka Karamchari, Circle Office Siwan Sadar, Siwan and 6. The State Information Commissioner, Bihar State Information Commission, Patna.
Paragraph 17 of the judgement reads:"In this background, the writ petition is allowed with following directions:-(i) The District Magistrate, Siwan, Sadar/Circle Officer (respondent no. 3), Siwan Sadar are thus directed to conduct a physical search of the barwarda register from the Circle Office or the office of the D.C.L.R. or District records, Siwan within four weeks and if the same is not traceable, then the authorities should reconstruct the record on the basis of the entries in the revenue records.
(ii) Secondly, if the document is found torn or not legible, then it could be digitized or enlarged or typed by the expert and it could be given to the petitioner after being certified by the concerned Circle Officer. This exercise should be carried out by the respondent authorities expeditiously.
(iii) At this juncture, if the document is traced out by the authorities, a communication to that effect be made to the petitioner to inspect the document in question along with his counsel so that petitioner is also made aware of the actual status of the document in question. If the petitioner finds that the document is torn or document is not legible and as such it will be difficult on part of the authorities to reconstruct or get it typed, petitioner can duly inform the authorities about his decision to either receive or not receive this document. It is expected that authorities will take proper steps in complying with the order and petitioner shall lend full cooperation to the authorities. However, if the parties’ fail to arrive at a definitive
conclusion and are at an impasse, regarding the receipt or non-receipt of the documents or as to the status or condition of the documents in question, the concerned authorities shall be obligated to pass a reasoned order in accordance with law, providing cogent reasons to the effect that the information could not be given despite making best efforts to furnish/reconstruct the same to the petitioner and despite ensuring full compliance to the directions issued in the light of this judgment."
The judgement was passed upon hearing the counsel for the petitioner, the counsel for the State as well as counsel for the State Information Commission.
The writ application was filed seeking the issuance of a writ in the nature of certiorari for quashing of the final order dated January 6, 2012 passed in Case No. 37744/2010-11, by the State Information Commission, Patna, Bihar, issued under memo no. 11206 dated 11.01.2012, whereby and whereunder, the Respondent No. 6 has deemed it fit to drop the entire proceedings, while admitting the justification provided by PIO-cum-Circle Officer, Siwan, Sadar (Respondent No. 3), under Section 20(1) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 and as such refused to furnish the certified copy of the barwarda and Register- II to the petitioner. The petitioner also prayed for the quashing of the memo No. 605 ii dated 28.06.2011, issued by the Respondent No. 3, whereby the Respondent No. 3 refused to furnish the aforesaid documents to the petitioner, stating that since the requisitioned documents are not available in original and whatever is available is in an unreadable condition, therefore, a certified true copy of the same cannot be supplied. The writ petitioner had prayed for the issuance of a direction to the Respondent Authorities for the consideration of the petitioner’s objection dated July 30, 2011, preferred before Respondent No. 6.
The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the impugned order dated January 6, 2012 passed by the Respondent No. 6 is cryptic, unreasoned and non-speaking. He submitted that the impugned order was passed without considering the information supplied by the petitioner in the objection filed by him. It was submitted that it was the obligatory duty on part of the quasi-judicial authority, to pass a reasoned order with respect to the issues raised, for ensuring lawful adjudication. Hence, he submitted that the impugned order dated January 6, 2012 been passed against the mandate of the RTI Act, 2005. The counsel submitted that once request for information was sought under the terms prescribed under Section 6(1) of the RTI Act, the Public Information Officer is obligated to dispose of such request within a period of thirty days as envisaged under Section 7 of the RTI Act.It was also submitted the information which was sought by the petitioner did not fall within the purview of ‘exempted information’ within the meaning of Section 8 of the RTI Act. Based on the combined reading of Sections 6, 7 and 8 of the RTI Act, it was contended that the respondents could not deny the furnishing of the information sought by the petitioner. On the factual aspect, learned counsel has pointed out the contradictory stand that unfolds on a bare perusal of the letter issued by Respondent No. 3 dated June 28, 2011, to the petitioner wherein, the P.I.O.-cum-Circle Officer/Respondent No. 3, Siwan Sadar refused the furnishing of the required document on the ground that it was not available in original and at the same time stated that the document in question was not legible/unreadable and therefore, a certified true copy of the same could not be supplied. Furthermore, this contradictory stand was reflected and would be apparent upon a plain reading of the counter-affidavit filed by Respondent No. 6, at paragraph-11, which showed that the respondents have acted in a contradictory and capricious manner.
The counsel contended that the objection dated July 30, 201 filed by him with the writ application before Respondent No. 6, was not considered while passing the final order dated January 6, 2012 in Case No. 37744/2010-11, as the impugned order made no reference to the objection filed by the petitioner, and thus, it did not reflect any consideration on this issue. It was submitted that the impugned order suffered from the vice of illegality and unreasonableness. The counsel also pointed out that vide Annexure-9, he has specifically mentioned the details of the persons to whom the certified copy and copy of the barwarda and register-II pertaining to the same Halka and Tauzi have been issued from the Circle Office, Siwan, Sadar. This fact has not been denied by the respondents in their respective counter affidavits, as in response to the same they have only mentioned that the same was a matter of record.
The counsel further submitted that the petitioner requires the required documents/information for submitting it before the concerned Court in Title Suit No. 106/1992 and thus, he required the documents in his support for the factual adjudication of the title suit, pending before the concerned court. He pointed out that there was no reason as to why the authorities could not grant him the requisite information or documents, when the same was a public document under Section 74 of Indian Evidence Act. The counsel also submitted that the plea of non-availability of records was unsubstantial and mala fide in as much as the State Information Commission has the power to conduct an inquiry, if it is satisfied that reasonable grounds warranting the same exist, before passing of a final order as enshrined under Section 18 (2) and (3) of the RTI Act. The counsel pointed out that the second appeal was filed by the appellant on May 18, 2010, but was disposed of only on July 30, 2011, i.e., almost after a year and it also in a way frustrated the mandate of Section 19(3) of the RTI Act. It was pointed out that in terms of Section 19(6) of the RTI Act, no time limit has been prescribed for the disposal of the second appeal and the same only stipulates that an appeal under sub-Section (1) and (2) of Section 19 shall be disposed of within a period of 30 days or within such extended period not exceeding 45 days from the date of filing of such appeal. Thus, upon a combined reading of Section 19 and specifically sub-Section (6) it could be construed that the second appeal must also be disposed of within a period of thirty days or within such extended period not exceeding 45 days. In this regard, reliance has been placed upon the judgment dated October 29, 2015 passed by the Karnataka High Court in Jayaprakash Reddy vs. Central Information Commission (In writ petition nos. 28310-28311 and 45540-45542 as well as the judgment dated July 7, 2010 by the Calcutta High Court in the case of Akhil Kumar Roy vs. The West Bengal Information Commission and Ors. in writ petition no. 11933 of 2010. In both the judgments, it has been categorically held that the second appeal should be decided within a period of 30 days or within such extended period not exceeding 45 days from the date of the filing of the appeal.
The counsel for the State submitted that barwarda is not a public document, as stated in paragraph-4 of their counter affidavit. It was argued that barwarda means a partition of tauzi by the ex-landlord amongst their co-sharers themselves and is an unsurveyed land of which Khatiyan was not prepared and therefore, barwarda in original was not available in Circle Office and it was not possible to furnish the certified copy of the same. It was also argued by the State that no Jamabandi has been created in respect of the barwarda land and in that context the State Information Commission vide final order dated January 6, 2012, issued in memo no. 11206, dated January 11, 2012, rightly closed the proceedings.
The counsel appearing on behalf of the State Information Commission was also filed an affidavit and defended the impugned orders and has contended that the document was not available in original, rather the photocopy of the same is available in a very unreadable and torn condition and thus, it is a settled principle of law that no certified copy of a photocopy can be issued. Since the barwarda in original was not present in the Circle Office, Siwan, Sadar, hence, a certified copy of the same cannot be granted by the respondent authorities. The counsel also contended that the information had already been furnished after due consideration and a proper compliance of the order dated March 10, 2011 was made. In this view, reference has been drawn to paragraph-11 of the counter affidavit filed by the Respondent No. 6. The counsel of the State Information Commission also submitted that while passing of the impugned order, the State Information Commission had gone through the objections raised by the petitioner and after due consideration of the same had issued directions to the Public Information Officer-cum-Circle Officer for providing due justification under Section 20(1) of the RTI Act, 2005, and after considering entire materials on record has rightly dropped the proceedings. The counsel argued that the petitioner had not appeared before the appellate authority on the date of passing of the impugned order. The counsel for the State Information Commission contended that the barwarda was not a public document and further, in view of the fact that the document in original was not available, hence the certified copy of the said barwarda could not be furnished to the petitioner.
Justice Kumar considered the issue as to whether the barwarda could be given to the petitioner when the same was untraceable or present in an unreadable form and observed: "Coming to the etymology of the document in question, it is defined as an year wise rent payment and it may not be registered but is used to determine the rent paid by the co-sharers, which is used as proof in partition suits as well as for Order 20 Rule 20 of the CPC. It contains the details of the co-sharers and further regarding the rent paid by them to the extent of their share of the Khesra or as per payment register to identify the co-sharers paying rent. This document is a public document as defined under Section 74 of the Indian Evidence Act, which can be used as an exhibit in a suit and as evidence under Section 114 of the Indian Evidence Act as it is a Government record and can also be adduced as a secondary evidence."
Justice Kumar relied on para-8 of the decision rendered in Anil Kumar Shukla vs. Central Public Information Officer, Ministry of Human Resource and Development Department of Higher Education, Decision No. CIC/MOHRD/A/2018/129097/01715. It reads: “Prima facie, any public authority cannot deny the right of the appellant to get the information by putting forward an excuse of the file going missing. The defence of missing file cannot be accepted even under the RTI Act. If the file is really not traceable, it reflects on the inefficient management of files by the public authority. If the file could not be traced in spite of best efforts, it is the duty of the respondent authority to reconstruct the file or develop a mechanism to address the issue raised by the appellant.”
Patna High Court's judgement recorded that "Under Rule 80 of the Bihar Records Manual, 1960, it has been stipulated that the District Collector is responsible to account for all missing files. Section 4 (1) of the R.T.I. Act, 2005, also emphasises that Public Information Officers have a duty to maintain all records which facilitates furnishing of the information. In this regard, reference has been made to Rule 230 of the Bihar Records Manual, 1960 wherein it has been stipulated that when a document is found to be illegible, it may be destroyed only after the same has been personally inspected by the Collector/S.D.O. The authorities therefore are duty bound to assign the reason for the destruction of the document and accordingly a memorandum must be prepared stating the fact of destruction, the nature of document destroyed and the same must bear the signature of the Collector/S.D.O. Hence, there appears to be a complete violation of the Rule 230, of the Bihar Records Manual, 1960 on part of the respondent authorities.
Justice Kumar also concluded: "14. What comes out in this matter for adjudication is that the respondents have not denied that the document/barwarda was falling within the parameters or purview of an exempted information within the meaning of Section 8 of the Right to Information Act, 2005. On the one hand, while the authorities have categorically mentioned that the document in the original was not present at the Circle Office, Siwan, Sadar, but at the same time they have mentioned that a photocopy of the same was available in an unreadable and torn condition. These two statements are contradictory to each other and strikes at the core of the object underlining the R.T.I. Act, 2005. It is also taken into consideration by this Court that the objection filed by the petitioner vide Annexure-9 to the writ petition in which it was mentioned that the other persons, who had made applications for the procuring this barwarda document had been handed over the documents in question. Although, no averments have been made by the concerned authorities denying the claim or the contention raised on behalf of the petitioner. 15. In the background of these facts, this Court is of the opinion that it is the statutory duty of the public authority to maintain all records which can facilitate the furnishing of information under the R.T.I. Act, 2005. It is also not in dispute that if original is damaged, then a secondary evidence can be created by a typed transcript prepared by Anchal Amin and attested by Circle Officer from the Lagan Rasheed as well as Khesra copy of the land pertaining to the said barwarda. 16. It is incumbent upon the authorities to maintain the records manual. The document being torn or not being legible or untraceable cannot be a ground to deny the furnishing of information which is a public record. The State cannot take advantage of its own failure to preserve records."
The counsel had further pointed out the provision of Section 19 of the R.T.I. Act, wherein, no time frame has been stipulated for disposing of the second appeal. The counsel referred to the judgments reported in Jayaprakash Reddy and Akhil Kumar Roy (supra) in which it has been held that the appeals should be decided within a period of 45 days as it would be travesty of justice if the appeals are kept pending and undecided for a long period. The judgement reads: "This Court is of the view that a second appeal must be decided within a period of 30 days or within such period not exceeding 45 days as decided through various judgments referred above so that, the person seeking information is not left remediless."
