Bhubaneswar, Oct. 11 -- In a scathing indictment of the State Information Commission (SIC), the Orissa high court has likened the bureaucratic ordeal faced by an RTI applicant to Franz Kafka's The Trial, strongly criticising "officialdom and red tapism" that turned the citizen's quest for information into a "nightmarish" exercise. Justice V Narasingh, in a judgment delivered on Thursday, quashed the February 2024 order of the State Information Commissioner that had dismissed the second appeal of Bhadrak resident Hemanta Nayak, who had sought details on alleged encroachment of land in his village since 2018. Justice Narasingh, in his order, drew a parallel between the petitioner's struggle for a reply and Kafka's tormented protagonist Josef ...