- (1.) THE added respondent, the person who made the request under Section 6 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, and the State Information Commissioner are vociferous in having the ad-interim order of december 29, 2008 vacated. The writ petitioner had complained of an order passed by the State Information Commissioner requiring a trunk kept in the custody of the registrar of Co-operative Societies pursuant to orders made by a competent Court, to be opened for the purpose of certain documents as sought by the information seeker to be made available to the State Information commissioner. At the time that the writ petition was received in the Christmas Vacation an order was made on December 29, 2008 staying the State Information commissioner's order of November 11, 2008 and the consequential order of December 12, 2008 passed by the Registrar of Co-operative Societies.
(2.) THE writ petitioner makes two points. First, the writ petitioner says that since it is a Co-operative Society and the information sought related to it, at the very least, the state Information Commissioner should have sought its views before proceeding to require the documents to be brought. The second point that the writ petitioner makes is that the Registrar of Co-operative Societies was in custody of the trunk following an order of the Judicial Magistrate. The writ petitioner says whatever may be the authority of the State Information Commissioner under the Right to Information Act, 2005; he cannot act in derogation of the powers vested in a regular judicial authority as the judicial Magistrate in the present case.
(3.) IN addition, it is submitted on behalf of the writ petitioner that the provisions of section 18 (3) of the Right to Information Act would not apply in respect of any matter pertaining to a Co-operative Society as a cooperative Society answers only to one master which is the Registrar under the West bengal Co-operative Societies Act and Section 134 and Section 143 of the West Bengal Co-operative societies Act would preclude the operation of section 18 (3) of the right to Information Act in the present situation.;