Central Information Commission
Narendra S Pol vs Pr.Chief Commissioner Of Income Tax ... on 2 December, 2022
Author: Saroj Punhani
Bench: Saroj Punhani
के ीय सूचना आयोग
Central Information Commission
बाबागंगनाथमाग , मुिनरका
Baba Gangnath Marg, Munirka
नई द ली, New Delhi - 110067
File No : CIC/CCITP/A/2022/606307
Narendra S Pol ......अपीलकता /Appellant
VERSUS
बनाम
CPIO,
O/o Income Tax Officer
(TDS)-2, Pune, Room No. 115,
1st Floor, Ayaykar Sadan,
Bodhi Tower, 548/2B,
Salisbury Park, Pune-411037,
Maharashtra .... ितवादीगण /Respondent
Date of Hearing : 30/11/2022
Date of Decision : 30/11/2022
INFORMATION COMMISSIONER : Saroj Punhani
Relevant facts emerging from appeal:
RTI application filed on : 26/08/2021
CPIO replied on : 22/09/2021
First appeal filed on : 21/10/2021
First Appellate Authority order : 16/11/2021
2nd Appeal/Complaint dated : 31/01/2022
Information sought:
The Appellant filed an RTI application dated 26.08.2021 seeking the following information:
"xxx 1 7.1 Copies of "26 AS - Annual Consolidated Statement " of my wife based on the below mentioned relevant details / information :
(a) Name of Wife : Mrs. Shweta Narendra Pol (i.e. Miss. Shweta Dattatraya Gade);
(b) PAN of Wife : AWZPG 7232 K;
(c) Name of Employers : (i) Venturelabour.com India (P) Ltd.; AND, (ii) Atidiv India Pvt. Ltd.;
(d) TAN of Employers : (i) MUMV 13855 C; AND, (ii) PNEL 06010 E;
(e) Period : For Financial Year - 2016-17 to 2021-22 (including both year).
7.2 My wife Mrs. Shweta Narendra Pol, has been willfully concealed / suppressed / misrepresented her actual income with various bad & mala fide intentions & also, she has stated verbally before the Concerned Hon. Court that she is staying into rented premises & paying rent against it. 7.3 And, further claiming that she needs to get monthly rent from her Husband. But, another side she has produced her Vague, Incomplete & Improper Job / Appointment Letter before the Concerned Hon. Court which shows that she is getting House Rent Allowance. 7.4 If she is getting HRA & if taking HRA benefit, she has to show that how much actual rent paid by her during those particular financial years. Accordingly, she has to show any receipt of house rent allowance or taken any HRA benefit from IT Department between Financial Year 2016-17 to 2021-22. For getting said benefit under the Provisions of Income Tax Act, she has to file Income Tax Return with Income Tax Authority for said periods which she has not filed yet.
7.5 The disclosure of information in larger public interest as every year there are lot of false HRA claims in income tax, this is happening due to large fraud & dirty minded people nexus in city for preparing forgery documents 7.6 Need the entire documents & other connected information by Speed Post / Email only.
7.7 Need all the documents / information with certified copy. 7.8 If you cannot give the whole information demanded / called up by me, please give a part of the information which can be given according to Section - 10 of RTI Act, 2005. Section - 10 of the said Act allows those part(s) of the record which are not exempt from disclosure and which can reasonably be severed from parts containing exempt information to be provided.
7.9 If the information sought by me cannot be given to me, please give me the certified copies of the laws / by laws / order / circular, etc. under which such information is forbidden to the public.
27.10 Whatsoever information you would provide me on paper, that paper should be duly signed and clearly stamped by the Competent Authority. If you use the backside of that paper for providing me the information, please get that side also duly signed and clearly stamped by the Competent Authority."
The CPIO denied information to the appellant on 22.09.2021 under section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005.
Being dissatisfied, the appellant filed a First Appeal dated 21.10.2021. FAA's order dated 16.11.2021 upheld the reply of the CPIO.
Feeling aggrieved and dissatisfied, the appellant approached the Commission with the instant Second Appeal.
Relevant Facts emerging during Hearing:
The following were present:-
Appellant: Present through audio-conference.
Respondent: P. Avinash, ITO & CPIO present through video-conference.
The Appellant at the outset while narrating at length the factual background of the case submitted that due to the matrimonial dispute with his wife, his wife has filed multiple cases against him and one of them relates to the maintenance case and because of which he along with his family has suffered lot of hardship and financial stress. Therefore, he urged the Commission for relief to be ordered in the matter stating that the gross and net income details as sought for in the RTI Application of his wife are required to corroborate evidence in cases filed against him by his wife in pursuance of a matrimonial dispute and award of a maintenance.
The CPIO submitted that the Appellant has sought for information related to income details of his wife which was rejected by him under Section 8(1)(j) of RTI Act. To a query from the Commission, he clarified that a matrimonial dispute and also a maintenance case against the Appellant is pending before the court of law. He further explained that as per the PAN details of the Appellant's wife, the actual custodian of information pertaining to her ITR rests with the assessing officer of ITO, Mumbai jurisdiction office. However, the records of gross income details of 3 Appellant's wife are available with them and he agreed to provide the same to the Appellant upon the directions of the Commission.
Decision:
This bench has dealt with cases bearing the same factual matrix and the stance that has been maintained by it so far is that the information sought for in the RTI Application pertains to the personal information of a third party and stands duly exempted under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. In this regard, the attention of the Appellant(s) was drawn towards a judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of Central Public Information Officer, Supreme Court of India Vs. Subhash Chandra Agarwal in Civil Appeal No. 10044 of 2010 with Civil Appeal No. 10045 of 2010 and Civil Appeal No. 2683 of 2010 wherein the import of "personal information" envisaged under Section 8(1)(j) of RTI Act has been exemplified in the context of earlier ratios laid down by the same Court in the matter(s) of Canara Bank Vs. C.S. Shyam in Civil Appeal No.22 of 2009; Girish Ramchandra Deshpande vs. Central Information Commissioner & Ors., (2013) 1 SCC 212 and R.K. Jain vs. Union of India & Anr., (2013) 14 SCC 794. The following was thus held:
"59. Reading of the aforesaid judicial precedents, in our opinion, would indicate that personal records, including name, address, physical, mental and psychological status, marks obtained, grades and answer sheets, are all treated as personal information. Similarly, professional records, including qualification, performance, evaluation reports, ACRs, disciplinary proceedings, etc. are all personal information. Medical records, treatment, choice of medicine, list of hospitals and doctors visited, findings recorded, including that of the family members, information relating to assets, liabilities, income tax returns, details of investments, lending and borrowing, etc. are personal information. Such personal information is entitled to protection from unwarranted invasion of privacy and conditional access is available when stipulation of larger public interest is satisfied. This list is indicative and not exhaustive..."
Further, in matters concerning the disputes of a husband and wife, the Commission is guided by a judgment of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the matter of Vijay Prakash vs. Union of India (W.P. (C) 803/2009) dated 01.07.2009 wherein the Court observed that in private disputes such as the present one 4 between a husband and wife "...The basic protection afforded by virtue of the exemption (from disclosure) enacted under Section 8(1)(j) cannot be lifted or disturbed.."
However, in the recent past, by way of the continuing reliance placed by a staggering number of applicants on the decision dated 06.11.2020 of the Commission in the Rahmat Bano case, this bench is inclined to echo the same rationale and for the sake of clarity, relevant portion of the said decision wherein while making a reference to the ratio laid down in the Apex Court judgement in the Girish Ramachandra (supra) case it was held as under:
"However, making a distinction with the said judgment, the Division Bench of the Hon'ble High Court of M.P. in the matter of Smt. Sunita Jain vs. Pawan Kumar Jain and others W.A. No. 168/2015 and Smt. Sunita Jain vs. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and others W.A. No. 170/2015 dated 15.05.2018 had in a matter where the information seeker had sought the salary details of her husband from the employer held as under:
"While dealing with the Section 8(1)(j) of the Act, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the appellant and the respondent No.1 are husband and wife and as a wife she is entitled to know what remuneration the respondent No.1 is getting. Present case is distinguishable from the case of Girish Ramchandra Deshpande (supra) and therefore the law laid down by their Lordships in the case of Girish Ramchandra Deshpande (supra) are not applicable in the present case. In view of the foregoing discussion, we allow the appeal and set aside the order passed by the Writ Court in W.P. No.341/2008. Similarly, the W.A. No.170/2015 is also allowed and the impugned order passed in W.P. No.1647/2008 is set aside."
8. Moreover, the Hon'ble High Court of Bombay (Nagpur Bench) in the matter of Rajesh Ramachandra Kidile vs. Maharashtra SIC and Ors in W.P. No. 1766 of 2016 dated 22.10.2018 held as under:
"8. Perusal of this application shows that the salary slips for the period mentioned in the application have been sought for by the Advocate. As rightly submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner, the salary slips contain such details as deductions made from the salary, remittances made to the Bank by way of loan instalments, remittances made to the Income Tax Authority towards part payment of the Income Tax for the concerned month 5 and other details relating to contributions made to Provident Fund, etc. It is here that the information contained in the salary slips as having the characteristic of personal nature. Any information which discloses, as for example, remittances made to the Income tax Department towards discharge of tax liability or to the Bank towards discharge of loan liability would constitute the personal information and would encroach upon the privacy of the person. Therefore as held by the Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of Girish Ramachandra Deshpande (supra) such an information could not be disclosed under the provisions of the RTI Act. This is all the more so when the information seeker is a person who is totally stranger in blood or marital relationship to the person whose information he wants to lay his hands on. It would have been a different matter, had the information been sought by the wife of the petitioner in order to support her contention in a litigation, which she filed against her husband. In a litigation, where the issue involved is of maintenance of wife, the information relating to the salary details no longer remain confined to the category of personal information concerning both husband and wife, which is available with the husband hence accessible by the wife. But in the present case, as stated earlier, the application has not been filed by the wife.
9. Then, by the application filed under the provisions of the RTI Act, information regarding mere gross salary of the petitioner has not been sought and what have been sought are the details if the salary such as amounts relating to gross salary, take home salary and also all the deductions from the gross salary. It is such nature of the information sought which takes the present case towards the category of exempted information.
10. All these aspects of the matter have not been considered by the authority below and, therefore, I find that its order is patently illegal, not sustainable in the eyes of law."
9. Taking into consideration the aforementioned analysis and the judgments of the Higher Courts, the Commission directs the respondent to inform the appellant about the generic details of the net taxable income/gross income of her husband held and available with the Public Authority for the period 2017- 2018, within a period of 15 working days from the date of receipt of this order. Emphasis Supplied 6
10. The details/copy of income tax returns and other personal information of third party need not to be disclosed to the appellant except as mentioned at para no. 9 above."
Now, considering the prayer of the Appellant's for the information which is being requested for a maintenance in a matrimonial dispute and by applying the same yardstick as applicable to a wife in such cases, the Commission directs the CPIO to provide the "generic details of the gross income in numeric figures of the wife for the specified time period as contained in the RTI Application without divulging any other income related details of his wife.
The above said information should be provided by the CPIO free of cost to the Appellant within 15 days from the date of receipt of this order. A compliance report to this effect shall be sent to the Commission by the CPIO immediately thereafter.
The appeal is disposed of accordingly.
Saroj Punhani (सरोज पुनहािन) हािन) Information Commissioner (सूचना आयु ) Authenticated true copy (अिभ मािणत स#यािपत ित) (C.A. Joseph) Dy. Registrar 011-26179548/ [email protected] सी. ए. जोसेफ, उप-पंजीयक दनांक / 7