Public authority can provide only the information it is supposed to maintain in its official course
26 Dec, 2012Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Directorate of Education in which he stated that his wife had filed a fabricated complaint at Police Station. He claimed that in the complaint, she had submitted to the police a list of items which he has apparently received as dowry from her parents at the time of their marriage. In this context, he sought information some information in relation to his mother in law (working as a Primary school teacher) such as details of moveable/ immoveable assets submitted by her from the year 2000 onwards till date; intimation/ declaration in respect of expenditure incurred by her on her daughter’s marriage; details of the gifts and articles from relatives and friends received on her daughter’s marriage and the income tax returns indicating the net income for the financial years 2000-01 to 2011-12 along with details of income from other sources as declared by her. The Public Information Officer (PIO) denied the information stating that the personal details of concerned official were not available.
Proceeding
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the respondent informed the Commission that as per the reply received from the Principal of the school, the information about the appellant’s mother in law is not available since the school is not expected to maintain such information. Regarding the income tax returns, it was submitted that the same could not be furnished as per the Honourable Supreme Court order in SLP (Civil) No.27734 of 2012 dt.3.10.12 in the case of Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. CIC and others since it is third party information.
(For the Supreme Court judgment, please see http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/dopt/SCDecision.pdf)
View of CIC
The Central Information Commission (CIC) directed the PIO to supply a copy of the letter received from the Principal of the School to the appellant. The Commission also held that the income tax return is third party information and the disclosure of which has no relation to any public activity or interest and hence cannot be disclosed.
Citation: Mr. Vikas Chandella v. Directorate of Education in File No: CIC/AD/C/2012/001603
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/905
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission