Seeking copy of 49 years old notification submitted by MCD under RTI
10 Apr, 2013Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Supreme Court of India seeking certified copy of the notification of year 1964 submitted by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) before the Supreme Court as per the directions of the Court. The Public Information Officer (PIO) informed that the relevant records had been weeded out and were no longer available.
Proceedings
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the appellant submitted that his case was dismissed by the Supreme Court primarily based on the notification of year 1964 which the MCD had produced before it and it was important for him to get a copy of this notification. The respondent submitted that the original records of the case were no longer available having been weeded out as per the record retention schedule followed by the Supreme Court of India.
View of CIC
The Commission observed that since the record of case do not exists then it would be impossible to know if any such notification had been produced by the MCD and whether it was the original notification or a draft of it. The CIC advised the appellant that he should seek a copy of the notification from the MCD itself. The Commission rejected the appeal noting that the records have been already destroyed and it was not possible for the PIO to produce the document or even to confirm if the document had ever been furnished to the court.
Citation: Mr. Swinder Singh v. Supreme Court of India in File No. CIC/SM/A/2012/001622
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2013/CIC/1187
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission