Action taken on the confidential letters written by the appellant to Income Tax Department
10 Jan, 2013Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Income Tax (IT) department seeking to know the action taken on the confidential letters written by him regarding Rohilkhand Educational Public Charitable Trust. The Public Information Officer (PIO) denied the information under section 8(1)(j) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person. stating that the information sought relates to third party. The PIO further informed that on the basis of a complaint filed by the appellant and subsequent inquiries by the Income Tax Department, the matter is pending before the Allahabad High Court.
Proceeding
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the appellant submitted that the RTI application filed by him pertained to Assessment year 2007-08 while the matter which was pending before the Allahabad High Court pertained to the period 2002- 03 to 2006-07. The appellant also claimed that larger public interest was involved in the disclosure hence the information should be provided.
View of CIC
The Commission directed the PIO to inform the appellant whether the information given by him was found to be true, partially true or false.
Citation: Mr. Jitendra Kumar v. Dy. Commissioner of IT Circle-1 & Addl. Commissioner of IT Circle-1 in File No.CIC/DS/A/2011/003620/RM
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2013/CIC/946
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission