ISTM Logo Here

Gandhiji Image here
Mon, Dec 23, 2024
Hindi Website Button Here
RTI >> Judgments >> CIC >> Miscellaneous (Law of Precedence, Compliant and Appeal, Freedom of Speech, Transparency in admission/selection)
Supreme Court(Miscellaneous (Law of Precedence, Compliant and Appeal, Freedom of Speech, Transparency in admission/selection))/ High Courts(Miscellaneous (Law of Precedence, Compliant and Appeal, Freedom of Speech, Transparency in admission/selection))
S.No. CIC CASE DATE OF JUDGMENT JUDGMENT
91 27 Apr, 2016 Subhash Chandra Agarwal vs CPIO, Prime Minister's Office, New Delhi

Section 6(1) Request for obtaining information. Section 6(3) To transfer the RTI application to another appropriate public authority.

The Commission relied upon its earlier decision in Case No. CIC/AD/A/2012/003674/VS/06817 dated 06.052014, wherein, it had allowed the disclosure of tour details, in India and abroad, of the Minister and held that the sought for information can be provided to the appellant using suitably severability clause in section 10(1) of the RTI Act. Secondly, the petitioner is obliged under section 6(1) to file his RTI application before the CPIO of the public authority, which is the "concerned public authority”, which holds the information within the meaning of section 2(j) of the Act. A public authority which does not hold or is not related to an information sought by a petitioner, will not be obliged to provide an answer to the petitioner only for the reason that that public authority was the Apex body or the nodal office of others sub ordinate public authorities.
92 22 Apr, 2016 Akshay Kr. Malhotra vs DDA, New Delhi

Section 18(1) CIC or SIC to receive and inquire into a complaint.

The Commission held that the petitioner has filed petitions in composite nature whereby, the petitioner has sought relief provided under section 19(8)(a)(v) of the RTI Act and also the penal action along with disciplinary action against the respondents under sections 20(1) & 20(2) of the RTI Act. Thus, these petitions may be legally construed as composite petitions. The composite petition of such nature is not legally tenable, simply because, if the relief provided under section 19(8)(a)(v) is allowed on such composite petition, the incorporation of section 19(3) of the RTI Act would be rendered as redundant and meaningless. The relief provided under section 19(8)(a)(v) of the RTI Act, is legally permissible to be provided to the petitioner, if he wishes to file the petition u/ s 19(3) of the RTI Act i.e. second appeal only before this Commission.

Similarly, the reliefs provided under sub-clause (1) & sub-clause (2) of section 20 of the RTI Act, are legally permissible to be provided to the petitioner, in case, he wishes to file the petition u/s 18 of the RTI Act i.e. a complaint before this Commission and, however, not in otherwise. Composite petitions are devoid of merit and deserve to be dismissed.
93 18 Apr, 2016 Dr. Mukul Prakash Gupta vs IFCI Ltd, New Delhi

Section 2(j) Right to Information.
Section 2(j)(i) Inspection of work, documents, records. Whether the Management Development Institute is covered under the RTI Act?

The Commission relied on the Judgment of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in Poorna Prajna Public School v Central Information Commission [W.P. (C) No.7265 of 2007; date of decision 25.09.2009] and held that the IFCI has a "deep and pervasive" control on the functioning of MDI, which is required under the law to submit to IFCI information concerning its "working". The Commission directed the CPIO, IFCI to examine de novo all five RTI applications of the appellant in the light of the above rulings of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court and provide the information to the appellant after obtaining the same from the MDI, while keeping the provisions of the RTI Act in view.
94 01 Apr, 2016 S. Vaikundarajan vs Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration & Research

Section 19(5) Onus to prove that a denial of a request was justified shall be on the CPIO.

The Commission held that in the facts of present appeal, clause (h) of section 8(1) is not attracted. The decision relied upon by the respondents is factually distinguishable inasmuch in the present appeal, mere pendency of civil writ proceedings could not be treated synonymous to expression, 'prosecution of offenders' as contained in clause (h) of section 8(1) of the Act. The respondents have grossly failed to discharge the burden of proof cast upon them u/s 19(5) of the RTI Act. The CPIO is directed to furnish the information as sought.
95 29 Mar, 2016 Ramesh Vishwakarma vs Central Board of Secondary Education, Patna

Section 6(1) Request for Information

The Right to Information (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules 2005 Rule 4.

The Commission directed the PIO to provide copy of the answer book at the cost of Rs. 2/-per page, within 15 days of receipt of this Order. The Commission also directed the PIO to showcause why maximum penalty should not be imposed against him for charging unreasonable amount and violation of RTI Act & Rules by demanding fee of Rs 700/-per answer script. The Commission also directed him to explain why compensation should not be paid to the appellant for harassing him by demanding such a huge amount.
96 03 Mar, 2016 K C. Sharma vs M/o Consumer Affairs, Lucknow

Section 8(3) Twenty years old Information

The Commission held that there is a legal obligation on the part of CPIO to provide the required information to the appellant in case, the relevant records are as old as upto twenty years and beyond this period, there is no legal obligation on the part of CPIO to provide the information to the appellant.
97 25 Feb, 2016 Mahendra Kumar Vs. Dena Bank, Mumbai

Section 7(9) Information disclosure of which would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority

The Commission held that the information as regarding all branches of the bank spread all over India and the collection of information sought by the Appellant would be a time consuming and laborious effort, that would disproportionately divert their resources from their day to day work. Therefore, we would not like to burden them with the task of collecting this information merely on account of the suspicion of the Appellant that some of the equipment sold in India, which he alleges was of substandard quality, might have been purchased by the Respondent Bank. We note that at point No.2, the Appellant sought the information regarding the data loaded on the magnetic strip Of ATM cards. We would refrain from directing the Respondents to provide this information, as it concerns the security features of their card.
98 19 Feb, 2016 Mudassar Ahmed vs CBSE, New Delhi

Section 19(8)(a) Power of the Commission to direct the Public Authority to take any such steps as may be necessary to secure compliance with the provisions of the Act.

The Commission directed the respondent authority/CBSE in exercise of its powers under section 19(8)(a) of the RTI Act, to instruct all the affiliated schools to put up the affiliation details, staff details and their academic schedule in the Public domain of their websites, so that the citizens need not file the RTI application and bother the respondent authority for this routine information pertaining to the affiliated schools.
99 18 Jan, 2016 S. S. Chandran Babu Vs. Indian Overseas Bank, Chennai

Section 1(2) Applicability of the Act Section 8(I)(d) Commercial Confidence Section 8(1)(e) Fiduciary Relationship the Commission held that we do not agree with the submission of the Respondents that the RTI Act does not apply to the activities of their branch in Singapore. The appellant has sought the entire copies of the minutes of the meetings for a period of over four years. Such disclosure is exempted under section 8(I)(d) of the RTI Act. The Appellant has not established any larger public interest for disclosure of this information to him. In so far as the information concerning the borrowers of the bank is concerned, we note that it is held by the bank in a fiduciary capacity and is exempted from disclosure under section 8(1)(e) of the RTI Act.
100 17 Mar, 2015 Anjali Seth Vs. CPIO, M/o. Urban Development Land & Development Office

The Commission held that as per section 2(j)(i) of the RTI Act, the right of inspection of relevant record vested with the appellant and not with the respondents, as such, if the respondents have been insisting of any applicant to have the inspection of the relevant record that is not legally tenable. However, it is having a legal force in vice-versa situation.
101 21 Jan, 2015 Vijay Kumar Garg v CPIO, Social Welfare Department, GNCTD

Appellant sought for information in relation tothe date of establishment of the office, Details of DSWO from the date of itsestablishment, from when the Widow Pension was started, from when the handicap pension was started, etc

The Commission observed that there is a clear case of misuse of RTI Act by the appellant. It directed the Public Authority to strengthen its proactive disclosure so that public need not depend on any kind of touts. In view of the conduct of the appellant of harassing the Public Authority, the Commission directs him to pay Rs. 500 to the Respondent Authority, which should be used for RTI Cell.
102 12 Jan, 2015 Prokriti Ranjan Mallick Vs. SBI, Kolkata

The appellant sought information on a number of matters including action taken on his complaint, transfer policy, etc.

The CPIO replied that the information pertains to different jurisdictions and it may take some more time. The FAA directed the CPIO to provide reply on one point and denied information on other points which were felt to be hypothetical and would require disproportionate diversion of resources to reply.

The CIC held that the appellant had sought information on multiple issues through a single RTI application and it would be difficult for the respondents to collect information on such multifarious issues. The appellant was advised to refrain from seeking information on multiple issues in future. The CPIO was directed to provide point-wise, reasoned and clear reply to the appellant within a week of receipt of the order.
103 09 Jan, 2015 A.S.Parmar Vs. Delhi Transco Limited

The appellant sought information in connection with a vigilance case pertaining to himself.

The Commission found that the appellant who has been imposed penalty in a vigilance case started stream of RTI applications to harass the Public Authority. The appellant was also found to not have served a copy of the second appeal to the respondent. CIC found this to be a serious lapse on the part of the appellant.

CIC found no merit in the second appeal and rejected the appeal.

The Commission also advised the appellant not to file any more RTI applications regarding his penalty case as the Commission do not have any authority to get into these questions. RTI cannot facilitate a preliminary inquiry to this kind of disgruntled elements.
104 23 Dec, 2013 Sanjay Maurya vs Directorate General of Employment & Training, New Delhi

Section 7 (9) — Information disclosure of which would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority

The Commission upheld the decision of the CPIO that the information requested by the appellant is huge and voluminous and scattered with 35 assessing bodies and compiling the same would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority.
105 11 Dec, 2013 Sub. Major Pal. Singh vs Department of Food & Supplies, Chandigarh

Section 5(4) — Appointment of the PIO's — only Gazetted Officer to be appointed as PIO

The Commission held that section 11 is not one of the exemption—clauses under the RTI Act. The CPIO to supply policy for issue of ration cards to the appellant with specific information that those persons to whom ration cards were issued have fulfilled all criteria prescribed in the policy.

The Commission further directed the competent authority to appoint only Gazetted officer as PIO.
Total Case uploaded: 185