Average ratio to attendance was denied on grounds of not being maintained for any employee - CIC: RTI Act provides access to existing information & does not cast an obligation upon the public authority to collect or collate non-available information
11 Jun, 2015ORDER
1. Shri Krishnappa Konchady, the appellant, vide his RTI application dated 22.5.2014, had sought information on the number of days he attended office since the issue of the new officiating cashier panel and the number of times office order was issued against him for officiating on cashier duty with dates. He also sought average ratio to the attendance till 22.5.2013.
2. The CPIO vide his reply dated 23.5.2014, gave him the total number of days along with month wise breakup of the days the appellant attended office since the issuance of the new officiating cashier panel. With reference to point 2, the CPIO informed his of the number of times and days on which office order was issued against him for officiating cashier duty. He, however, did not mention the average ratio to the attendance as sought for by the appellant. The FAA gave further information on his appeal with respect to the dates of issue of office order and the cashier’s duty date and also informed that there was no system of calculating the average ratio with respect to attendance.
3. The appellant was not quite satisfied with the information provided to him and made the present appeal dated 4.7.2014 to the CIC stating that the FAA who gave him some details did not furnish the average ratio.
4. The matter was heard by the Commission. The appellant stated that while he had been provided information on other points, he had not been given any information with regard to average ratio to attendance till 22.5.2013. He stated that the LIC deals with statistics and numbers and, therefore, they should be able to provide him average ratio to the attendance. The respondents sated that the appellant is an employee of the corporation and is working as an Assistant and that they had duly responded to the information sought for by him and provided the same. However, they cannot provide any answer to the ratio to the attendance sought by him as they do not maintain such data for any employee.
5. The Commission upholds the decision of the respondents. The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in Civil Appeal No. 6454 of 2011 has held that “….35. At this juncture, it is necessary to clear some misconceptions about the RTI Act. The RTI Act provides access to all information that is available and existing. This is clear from a combined reading of Section 3 and the definitions of 'information' and 'right to information' under Clauses (f) and (j) of Section 2 of the Act. If a public authority has any information in the form of data or analyzed data, or abstracts, or statistics, an applicant may access such information, subject to the exemptions in Section 8 of the Act. But where the information sought is not a part of the record of a public authority, and where such information is not required to be maintained under any law or the rules or regulations of the public authority, the Act does not cast an obligation upon the public authority, to collect or collate such non-available information and then furnish it to an applicant. …..”. The appeal is disposed of.
(Manjula Prasher)
Information Commissioner
Citation: Shri Krishnappa Konchady v. Life Insurance Corporation of India in Appeal No. CIC/MP/A/2014/001351