Central Information Commission
Shri Madhav Balwant Karmarkar vs Debts Recovery Tribunal on 30 December, 2008
CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
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F.No.CIC/AT/A/2008/00631
Dated, the 30th December, 2008
Appellant : Shri Madhav Balwant Karmarkar
Respondents : Debts Recovery Tribunal
This matter came up for hearing on 24.12.2008 in the presence of both parties.
2. Appellant through his RTI-application dated 08.03.2008 raised the following queries:-
"1. You are requested to furnish us the number of cases filed by banks and financial institutions where agriculture finance is involved.
2. Whether in view of announcement in the present Finance Bill the reimbursement of outstanding agriculture loan, all these matters have been stayed by the Hon'ble Presiding Officer."
3. Appellate Authority, through his order dated 25.04.2008, advised the appellant as follows:-
"Here, in exercise of this Provision to 3(1)L, I advise the Appellant to collect the information of the case titles of the matters filed / registered before DRT from January 2008 to April 2008 as well as the Recovery Proceedings of the same period and once such information is available to him, he can identify as to which of the matters relate to the agriculture loan or allied business, for which a detailed inspection can be taken as per Provisions RDDB Act, 1993."
4. Appellant's contention now before the Commission is that the First Appellate Authority has neither denied the availability of the information "nor has denied collecting it from the records of the DRT, Pune." Appellant finds it "peculiar" that Appellate Authority was asking the information-seeker himself to "probe into the records of the DRT and collection [sic] the necessary information as to the recovery applications filed by the banks / financial institutions in respect of agricultural borrowers."
5. During the hearing, respondents' rep. submitted that DRT was charged with the responsibility of collection of bad debts brought to its notice by the lending agencies. These bad debts might relate to a wide variety of activities, Page 1 of 2 agriculture being one of them. The DRT maintains no information in regard to sector-wise distribution of debt-related cases. As such, there is no database regarding the type of information which the appellant wants.
6. The Appellate Authority, in a spirit of being helpful to the appellant, rather than decline to disclose all requested information as it was not centrally maintained and generating which would be disproportionate to the effort which would be required and which would attract Section 7(9) of the RTI Act; advised appellant to scrutinize the records retained by the respondents and take out such information as he might wish to have. Respondents have further pointed out that since the RTI did not deal in the matters of debt recovery in terms of the purpose for which the debt was lent, any determination regarding the purpose of loans ⎯ agriculture or any other ⎯ may turn out to be inexact or inaccurate, exposing the respondents to charge of providing incorrect and misleading information, if even one of the items was to be found to be unrelated to the purpose. It is because of this reason, apart from the fact that debt recovery was not dependent upon knowledge about the purpose for which the debt was given, did not consider the information about the purpose of lending as key-element in determination of recovery liability.
7. The sum-total of respondents' submission is that this variety of information should not be sought from the DRT but from the sources where such information might be retained, tabulated and collated. They were unable to provide this information to the appellant because they were not the source of this information and their activity was related only to debt recovery for the lending agencies.
8. There is merit in the submission of the respondents. Regardless of the high purpose which the appellant cites as a reason for him to be provided with the requested information, his request cannot be conceded because DRT is not the agency to maintain the type of information appellant has sought. It has been clearly stated in the statements of the DRT that debt recovery-related information is not maintained in any database but is held in the 'case files', which are numerous. Since it is unrelated to the function of the DRT, such information is not collected and collated at a central point. The request of the appellant will undoubtedly attract provision of Section 7(9) (disproportionate diversion of resources of the public authority) of the RTI Act and cannot thus be authorized to be disclosed.
9. Appeal is accordingly closed.
10. Copy of this decision be sent to the parties.
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