Central Information Commission
Sujeet Babu Mb vs Chief Commissioner Of Income Tax (Cca), ... on 30 November, 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/CCAPT/A/2022/605851 +
CIC/CCITB/A/2022/606931
Sujeeth Babu M B ......अपीलकता /Appellant
VERSUS
बनाम
CPIO,
O/o Income Tax Officer,
RTI Cell, Aayakar Bhavan,
Tamatkal Road, Medehally,
Chitradurga-577502, Karnataka .... ितवादीगण /Respondent
Date of Hearing : 30/11/2022
Date of Decision : 30/11/2022
INFORMATION COMMISSIONER : Saroj Punhani
Note - The above mentioned appeal(s) have been clubbed together as these are
based on same RTI Application(s).
Relevant facts emerging from appeal(s):
RTI application(s) filed on : 08/11/2021 & 08/11/2021
CPIO reply(s) on : Not on record & N.A.
First appeal(s) filed on : 08/12/2021 & 08/12/2021
First Appellate Authority order : Not on record & 20/12/2021
2nd Appeal/Complaint dated : 27/01/2022 & NIL
1
CIC/CCAPT/A/2022/605851 +
CIC/CCITB/A/2022/606931
Information sought:
The Appellant filed an online RTI application dated 08.11.2021 seeking the following information:
"I want gross income of my wife Mrs. Ganashree PV who is obtained PAN No. BZKPG5181N for the years from 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2019-2020 and 2020-2021."
CIC/CCAPT/A/2022/605851 + CIC/CCITB/A/2022/606931 The CPIO forwarded the RTI application on 15.11.2021 to the CPIO & Income Tax Officer, Aayakar Bhavan, Tamatkal Road, Medehally, Chitradurga under section 6(3) of the RTI Act, 2005.
CIC/CCAPT/A/2022/605851 Being dissatisfied, the appellant filed a First Appeal dated 08.12.2021.
The CPIO, ITO (TPS-1 & Nodal Officer RTI-MIS, O/o Commissioner of Income Tax (Admn. & TPS), Bengaluru also transferred the appeal on 14.12.2021 to the Addl. Commissioner of Income-tax, Range- 1(1), and First Appellate Authority, 2" Floor, BMTC Building Koramangala, Bangalore-560095 under section 6(3) of the RTI Act, 2005.
CIC/CCITB/A/2022/606931 Being dissatisfied, the appellant filed a First Appeal dated 08.12.2021. FAA's order dated 20.12.2021 held as under:-
"..........2. The appellant had sought to know the gross income of his wife Ms. Ganashree P V as per the income tax returns for 5 years from 2016-17 to 2020-21. The application was rejected by the CPIO, vide order u/s 7(1) of RTI Act, 2005 dated 26.11.2021 on the grounds the information sought was personal in nature and that the applicant did not demonstrate any larger public interest in disclosure of such information.2
3. Aggrieved, the appellant filed an appeal before the undersigned seeking the information. The appellant also relied on the ruling of Central Information Commission, New Delhi in the case of Amrita Chatterjee (No. CIC/ CCITJ/A/2019/1 21513) in support of his claim.
4. The application made by the applicant and the order passed by the CPIO were examined. The appellant in his application before the CPIO and also in the appellate proceedings had asked about the gross income of his wife Ms. Ganashree PV as per income tax returns for 5 years.
5. Firstly, the request of the appellant seeking the information on tax returns of Ms. Ganashree PV cannot be entertained as it is personal information of a third party and hence barred from disclosure in terms of ruling of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in the case of Girish Ramachandra Despande. The Hon'ble CIC in the case of Amrita Chatterjee (supra) has taken cognizance of this fact and held that copies of the income tax returns / other personal information need not be disclosed. However, considering the marital discord between the husband and wife vis-à-vis the right of maintenance, the commission directed the authorities to provide the appellant only with the details of gross annual income of the husband.
6. In the present case the information is sought by Shri Sujeeth Babu M B who is the husband of the third party Mrs. Ganashree PV and therefore the ruling of Hon'ble CIC in the case of Amrita Chatterjee is applicable.
However, it is pertinent to note that Hon'ble CIC had also passed another order in the case of Pawan Kumar Saluja (CIC/CCITD/A/2019/120284) wherein the husband had sought the details of the income tax returns of his wife and the same were denied by the CPIO. On appeal, the Hon'ble CIC relied on judgments of various High courts and decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Subhash Chandra Agarwal and held that in the absence of any larger public interest in the matter, the appellant is not entitled to seek information regarding bank details & income tax returns of his wife which is exempted u/s 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005.
7. Evidently there is a cleavage of opinion on the issue as seen in the aforesaid decisions of the Hon'ble CIC. Also, the appellant had not demonstrated any larger public interest attached to the disclosure of the information sought. Under such circumstances, I am of the opinion that the 3 order of Hon'ble CIC in the case of Pawan Kumar Saluja and the decision of the Apex Court in Subhas Chandra Agarwal are applicable to facts of the case. Accordingly, the request of the applicant to disclose the gross annual income of his wife Mrs. Ganashree PV is rejected."
Feeling aggrieved and dissatisfied, the appellant approached the Commission with the instant Second Appeal.
Relevant Facts emerging during Hearing:
The following were present:-
Appellant: Represented by Advocate Sumathi Lokesh present through video- conference.
Respondent: Subba Raju, ITO & CPIO present through video-conference.
The Rep. of the Appellant urged for relief to be ordered in the matter stating that the gross and net income details of the period as stated in the RTI Application are required to corroborate evidence in cases filed against the Appellant by his wife in pursuance of a matrimonial dispute and award of maintenance. To a query from the Commission, she further clarified that currently one of the maintenance case is pending before the Court of law. In support of the arguments, the Rep. of Appellant invited attention of the bench towards various case laws of the Commission where the predecessor bench had directed the CPIO to provide gross salary of the husband/wife of the applicant in numeric figures.
The CPIO submitted that the reply to the instant RTI Application was provided denying the information under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act as being related to a third party. However, he agreed to abide by the direction of the Commission.
To a query from the Commission, the CPIO further submitted that upon tracing of records it was further revealed that the wife of the Appellant has not filed any ITR for the period as sought for in the RTI Application.
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 4 exempted under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. In this regard, the attention of the Appellant(s) has been 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 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.."
Similarly, in the matter of Madhumala B. R. vs. ACIT, Ward 3(3)(1), Bangalore based on the same facts in File No. CIC/CCITB/A/2021/609570, the attention of this bench was invited to the following cases filed by the Income Tax authorities in Bangalore with the Hon'ble High Court of Karnataka against the orders of the Commission wherein "gross income" of the spouse was allowed to be disclosed citing the right of maintenance:
51. Jammula Padma Manjari in W.P. No. 18778 of 2017 (CIC/BS/A/2016/001440-BJ)
2. Gulsanober Bano in W.P. No. 34625 of 2019 (CIC/CCITB/A/2017/180340-BJ)
3. Neena Bhatnagar Mani in W.P. No. 7367 of 2020 (CIC/CCITB/A/2018/106268-BJ)
4. Chhavi Goel Nee Agarwal in W.P. No. 7281 of 2020 (CIC/CCITB/A/2018/120646-BJ)
5. Devyani Lakher in W.P. No. 7453 of 2020 (CIC/PNBNK/A/2018/104442)
6. Princy Amit Jain in W.P. No. 11233 of 2020 (CIC/CCITB/A/2018/164565).
Nonetheless, since the averred Court cases are reportedly under an interim stay by the Karnataka High Court and the details of the arguments or further orders are not available on record, this bench has accepted the bar on disclosure thus far only in the Madhumala case.
Per contra, in the recent past this bench has met with the continuing reliance placed by a staggering number of applicants on the decision dated 06.11.2020 of a coordinate bench of the Commission in the Rahmat Bano case, wherein the disclosure of the gross income was allowed to the estranged wife on the ground of sustenance and livelihood of the family. The said decision was premised on the judgments of two High Courts i.e 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 by Hon'ble MP High Court as well as Rajesh Ramachandra Kidile vs. Maharashtra SIC and Ors in W.P. No. 1766 of 2016 dated 22.10.2018 by Hon'ble High Court of Bombay (Nagpur Bench). Thus, 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 in the Rahmat Bano case:
"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 6 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 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 7 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
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."
In pursuance of the Appellant's prayers and urging that the information is being requested for a maintenance case, applying the same yardstick as applicable to a wife in such cases, the Commission directs the CPIO to provide the "generic details of the net taxable income/gross income" of the wife for the specified time period as contained in the RTI Application. As explained during the hearing, no Income tax returns are filed by the wife of the Appellant i.e. information sought for is not available in their office, then a categorical statement to this effect in writing should be reflected in the revised reply of the CPIO.
The above said reply/information should be provided by the CPIO to the Appellant free of cost 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(s) are disposed of accordingly.
Saroj Punhani (सरोज पुनहािन) हािन) Information Commissioner (सूचना आयु ) 8 Authenticated true copy (अिभ मािणत स#यािपत ित) (C.A. Joseph) Dy. Registrar 011-26179548/ [email protected] सी. ए. जोसेफ, उप-पंजीयक दनांक / 9