Can the emoluments of a person be disclosed to his estranged wife?
4 Oct, 2012Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking information regarding the emoluments of her estranged husband such as his salary, commission amount, incentives and any other payments made to him during the financial year 2010 – 2011. The Public Information Officer (PIO) provided the breakup of payments made under different heads indicating a total income of Rs.16,63,571/- during the said period which after income tax deduction came to Rs.13,71,132/-. The appellant filed the first appeal stating that the name of the person whose details have been given was not mentioned and also there was no office stamp on the PIO's. The First Appellate Authority provided the month wise details of salary, incentives and other perks paid to the appellant’s husband.
Proceeding
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the appellant submitted that the information provided by the FAA in chart form was misleading as it showed net amount paid after income tax deductions to be Rs.84,767/- and the incentive bonus of Rs. 12,72,535. 68, prize money of Rs. 9975/-, wage arrears and other income etc. was deliberately not included in the column ‘Net Paid’ so as to reflect lower amount of income of her husband during the financial year 2010 – 2011. She submitted that this deliberate action is further reflected in the fact that under the column ‘Gross’ only the salary component has been totaled whereas under the IT deducted column, the total amount of tax deducted on all the taxable components of her husband emoluments had been given thereby providing a very skewed and misleading picture of the earnings of appellant’s husband during financial year 2010-2011. She informed the information was needed for receiving maintenance through court order for her minor daughter.
View of CIC
The Central Information Commission (CIC) observed that the appellant has established larger public interest in disclosure of the requested information with regard to protecting the interests of her minor daughter. The Commission directed the PIO to provide affidavit to the Commission reflecting the true and correct emoluments of the appellant’s husband for the period mentioned above which will include his salary, incentive bonus, other income etcetera to reflect the gross income and true net amount paid to him after deduction of income tax for financial year 2010-11 with copy to the appellant. Under section 19(8)(b), the Commission awarded a compensation of Rs. 10,000/- to the appellant for harassment and mental anguish caused to her on account of misleading and incomplete information provided by the PIO.
Citation: Mrs. Kusha Arora v. LIC of India in Appeal: No. CIC/DS/A/2011/003519
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/696
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission