Central Information Commission
Shri Pratap Singh Gandas vs Deputy Commissioner Of Police (Dcp) ... on 17 November, 2008
CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
Appeal No. CIC/WB/A/2007/00571 dated 11-6-2007
Right to Information Act 2005 - Section 19
Appellant: Shri Pratap Singh Gandas
Respondent: Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Vig.
FACTS
In the present case the appellant Shri Pratap Singh Gandas of v Kishangarh, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi filed an application dated 1.5.06 with the CPIO of the Delhi Police and sought the following information:
"Please give me the information's/ action taken reports/ status reports against Mr. Surinder Singh Sehrawat who was the SHO, P. S. Uttam Nagar, New Delhi when he was suspended in a case of corruption."
The CPIO in his reply dated 30.5.069 stated that: -
"I am to inform you that Shri Surender Singh Sehrawat, Inspr. is facing a Departmental Enquiry in a corruption case which is in final stage."
Thereafter the appellant Shri Gandas filed a subsequent application under RTI, Act on 29.6.06 and sought point wise information from the CPIO, as follows:
"A(1) Give me the date, month and year when the Former SHO P. S. Uttam Nagar, New Delhi Mr. Surender Singh Sehrawat was suspended in the corruption case pending Departmental Inquiry.
(2) The grounds on which he was suspended.
(3) Why so much delay in Departmental Inquiry.
(4) Why he was suspended only?
(5) Why he was not arrested and prosecuted in the Court of
law in this Corruption case?
(6) What are the documentary evidences on which he was
suspended.
B(1) Give me the date, month and year when this Surender Singh Sehrawat was suspended in another corruption case when he was the SHO PS Hari Nagar, New Delhi.1
(2) On what grounds he was suspended?
(3) On what grounds he was re-instated?
To this he received the following reply dated 24.7.'06 .
"I am to inform you that the requisite information as asked by you can not be furnished to you as per section 8 (1) (e) and (j) as it relates to personal information, the disclosure of which has not relationship to any public activit6y or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual."
The First Appellate Authority also upheld the non-disclosure of information by the CPIO in his order dated 3.10.06. Thereafter the appellant filed his 2nd appeal with this Commission on 11.6.07 and prayed:-
Action against CPIO and First Appellate Authority u/s 20 (2) of the Act and directions to provide information to the appellant without any delay and also asking Commission to order some enquiry as prayed.
The appeal was heard on 17-11-08. The following are present.
Appellant Shri Pratap Singh Gandas Respondent Shri M. N. Tiwari, DCP (Vigilance) Shri Gandas submitted that he has alleged forgery by the 1st appellate authority because that officer had ruled on a subject that was not the subject of his appeal, which complained only of non-receipt of an answer to his application and he therefore suspects that the response claimed from CPIO was a forgery.
DECISION NOTICE We have examined the file and the submissions of both PIO and Appellate Authority. We have no clear definition of what is meant by "invasion of privacy" within the RTI Act as specified in Sec 8 (1) (j) and as relied upon for pleading exemption from disclosure in the present case. As cited by Hon'ble Prabha Sridevan J. in the High Court of Madras W.P. No. 47897 of 2006 of 17.04.2008 in R Anbazhagan vs. SIC & Ors, the scope of Right to 2 Information vis-a-vis the right to privacy has been discussed in MANU/TN/3276/2006 (Doraisamy, K.J. v. The Assistant General Manager, State Bank of India, Erode Branch). The relevant paragraphs are extracted herein:
14. R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu MANU/SC/0056/1995 is a turning point in the history of the development of the law of privacy in India.
.9. The right to privacy as an independent and distinctive concept originated in the field of Tort law, under which a new cause of action for damages resulting from unlawful invasion of privacy was recognised. This right has two aspects which are but two faces of the same coin - (1) the general law of privacy which affords a tort action for damages resulting from an unlawful governmental invasion. The first aspect of this right must be said to have been violated where, for example, a person's name or likeness is used, without his consent, for advertising - or non-advertising - purposes or for that matter, his life story is written - whether laudatory or otherwise - and published without his consent as explained hereafter. In recent times, however, this right has acquired a constitutional status. We shall proceed to explain how? Right to privacy is not enumerated as a fundamental right in our Constitution but has been inferred from Article 21.
15. After an elaborate discussion of the American, Australian and English Case Law, the Supreme Court summarised the principles flowing from the discussion, in paragraph 26 as follows:
26.We may now summarise the broad principles flowing from the above discussion:
The rule aforesaid is subject to the exception, that any publication concerning the aforesaid aspects becomes unobjectionable if such publication is based upon public records including Court records. This is for the reason that once a matter becomes a matter of public record, the right to privacy no longer subsists 1 and it becomes a legitimate subject for comment by press and media among others. We are, however, of the opinion that in the interests of decency [Article 19(2)] an exception must be carved out to this rule, viz., a female who is the victim of a sexual assault, kidnap, abduction or a like 1 Emphasis added 3 offence should not further be subjected to the indignity of her name and the incident being publicised in press/media."
We have no equivalent of UK's Data Protection Act, 1998, Sec 2 of which, titled Sensitive Personal Data, reads as follows:
In this Act "sensitive personal data" means personal data consisting of information as to:
a) The racial or ethnic origin of the data subject
b) His political opinions
c) His religious beliefs or other beliefs of a similar nature
d) Whether he is a member of a Trade Union
e) His physical or mental health or condition
f) His sexual life
g) The commission or alleged commission by him of any offence
h) Any proceedings for any offence committed or alleged to have been committed by him, the disposal of such proceedings or the sentence of any court in such proceedings.
The US Restatement of the Law, Second, Torts, § 652 on the other hand defines the Intrusion to Privacy in the following manner:
One, who intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns, is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.
If we were to construe privacy to mean protection of personal data, these would be a suitable reference point to help define the concept. In this context, as may be seen the questions sought by appellant at A (2), 6 & B (1), (2) and (3) are of private information as defined at sub-sections g) and h) of the UK Data Protection Act above including, in more general terms of the US Restatement of the Law. The action of PIO is to this extent, clearly in accordance with the law. Similarly question A (3), (4) and (5) are requests for opinions and not for information. These cannot be deemed to fall within the definition of 'right to information' as decreed in Sec 2(j), nor indeed, not being held in material form, to fall within the definition of even 'information' as in Sec 2 (f). There is also no substance to the very serious charge of forgery, merely a suspicion without tenable grounds.4
However, the same cannot be said of the response to Questions A (1) and B (1), which read as follows.
A (1) Give me the date, month and year when the Former SHO P. S. Uttam Nagar, New Delhi Mr. Surender Singh Sehrawat was suspended in the corruption case pending Departmental Inquiry.
B (1) Give me the date, month and year when this Surender Singh Sehrawat was suspended in another corruption case when he was the SHO PS Hari Nagar, New Delhi.
Clearly such information, as is clearly held by the apex court in R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu MANU/SC/0056/1995, is a question of facts on record, and cannot fall within any of the sub-sections of Sec 8 (1) allowing for exemption from disclosure, let alone being information held in trust as required u/s 8(1) (e) or private information as discussed on the question of intrusion of privacy above. This is clearly a public activity since it concerns departmental action concerning a public official and must therefore be disclosed. This information will therefore be provided to appellant Shri Gandas within a week of receipt of the Decision Notice by DCP (Vig) This Appeal is thus allowed in part, but without cost.
Announced in the hearing. Notice of this decision be given free of cost to the parties.
(Wajahat Habibullah) Chief Information Commissioner 17-11-2008 Authenticated true copy. Additional copies of orders shall be supplied against application and payment of the charges prescribed under the Act to the CPIO of this Commission.
(Pankaj K.P. Shreyaskar) Joint Registrar 17-11-2008 5