legal notice against CPIO

[bindu]

Hello friends,
I would like to know as to whether there is any provision to initiate legal action against CPIO.
In my office (central govt.dept.) a legal notice has been issued against the orders of the CPIO. An appeal was earlier filed to the first appellant authority and his appeal was partially allowed. Now the appellant has issued legal notice citing legal action against CPIO without appealing to 2nd appellant authority. Is there any scope for legal action under law.

[DineshK]

Yes. You can approach the court provided you have enough evidence.

[karira]

Bindu,

What is the legal action for ?
What does the legal notice say ?

The RTI Act provides for a due process:

RTI Application
First Appeal
Second Appeal

Only after the Second Appeal, can a person go with a WP to the High Court.

That too, the WP has to be something to do with the matter of RTI and its process - whether information was given or not, whether penalty was correctly levied or not.

Sometimes, it might happen, that a applicant gets some information through the RTI process and uses that information for going to court. But that has nothing to do with the CPIO or the AA.

The CPIO has protection under Sec 21 of the Act (action in good faith) and Sec 23 puts a bar of jurisdiction of courts (except for WP).

[snkmoorthy]

Bindu, there is no scope for filing a legal notice against the CPIO unless you can prove malafide on his part; the last sentence in karira's post is the answer to your query