Collection and disclosure of information is done at the cost of some other equally useful work
3 Mar, 2013Background
The appellant filed three applications under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Principal Accountant General (Audit) seeking large variety of information. The Public Information Officer (PIO) provided some information and also invited him in some cases to inspect the records to find out the exact information.
Proceedings
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the respondent submitted that the appellant is a dismissed employee of the organisation and has filed more than 25 such RTI applications in the recent months.
View of CIC
The Central Information Commission (CIC) observed that the RTI Act gives the citizen the right to seek information held by public authorities but this does not mean that a citizen should monopolise the entire public authority with a barrage of requests thereby rendering it almost dysfunctional for any other purpose. The CIC also stated that the time spent in a government office in collecting and disclosing information is done at the cost of some other equally useful work. The Commission, however, directed the PIO to provide all factual information and documents against the remaining queries to the appellant. The Commission also ruled that if some of the information sought is very voluminous or is dispersed in several files, the PIO should invite the appellant to inspect the relevant files.
Citation: Mr. Ajay Kumar Sharma v. the Principal Accountant General in File No. CIC/SM/A/2012/001112, 1592 & 1638
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2013/CIC/1088
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission