Central Information Commission
Badal Kanti Sengupta vs Ministry Of Railways (Railway Board) on 23 August, 2024
केन्द्रीय सूचना आयोग
Central Information Commission
बाबा गंगनाथ मागग, मुननरका
Baba Gangnath Marg, Munirka
नई निल्ली, New Delhi - 110067
File No: CIC/MORLY/A/2023/136162
Badal Kanti Sengupta .....अपीलकर्ाग /Appellant
VERSUS
बनाम
PIO,
DDE (N) & CPIO, Railway Board,
Rail Bhawan, New Delhi-110001. ....प्रनर्वािीगण /Respondent
Date of Hearing : 16.08.2024
Date of Decision : 22.08.2024
INFORMATION COMMISSIONER : Vinod Kumar Tiwari
Relevant facts emerging from appeal:
RTI application filed on : 18.03.2023
CPIO replied on : 21.04.2023
First appeal filed on : 02.05.2023
First Appellate Authority's order : Not on record
2nd Appeal/Complaint dated : 28.08.2023
Information sought:
The Appellant filed an RTI application dated 18.03.2023 seeking the following information:
1) There are 11 department in Indian Railway, which of these Department are classified as Essential category and Non Essential category? Board Circular, Notification if any may kindly be attached.
2) Whether the Pay scale and Grade pay of all the Class III Supervisory staff of all the Departments of Indian Railway should be equal on the principle of Equal Pay for Equal work? Copy of Notification/Circular etc. enforced Page 1 of 7 and circulated by the Ministry of Labour and also by Ministry of Railway in reproduced form may kindly be provided to undersigned.
3) As Indian Railway is a Public service organisation, hence what types of services render to the public directly by the Accounts Department?
4) In Indian Railway there are 11 Departments, the Personnel Department is the Salary and Pay drawing Authority of staff and officials of 9 Departments including the staff and official of Personnel Department itself, hence under which para and provision of Railway Board Circular and Notification that the Accounts Department and the Security Department are the 2 separate Salary and Pay drawing authority of staff and official of their respective Department itself?
5) The Class III and Class IV staff are recruited from their respective Regional Railway Recruitment Board and Railway Recruitment cell respectively. So whether the Class III and Class IV staff of Accounts Department and Security Department are recruited from Railway Recruitment Board and Railway Recruitment Cell respectively? Whether the Accounts Department and Security Department has separate Recruitment Board and Separate Recruitment cell?
5) The staff of Security Department gets one additional Salary yearly, hence in which nominated month the said additional Salary are payable to the staff of Security Department? Whether all the category of class III and class IV staff of Security Department from Lower Scale/ Grade Pay to highest scale/ Grade Pay including Supervisor and Inspector (i.e IPF] are entitled for the said additional Salary? Extract copies of Notification or Circular enforced by Railway Board may kindly be provided to undersigned.
7) The movement of Travelling Cash Safe has been dis-continued from the year of 2018 as the station earning are collected through the Authorized Agency of Bank and thereafter the station earning are remitted to the Respective Authorized Bank Branch Offices, However Prior to 2018 the Cashier [i.e. Shroff] of all the respective zonal Cash offices would receive Cash Allowances in the form of Honorarium for collection and counting of Cash. Hence under which provision of Railway Board policy matters the Shroff are entitled for Honorarium and the Commercial staff deals directly with the passengers for issue of Tickets and collection of cash from passenger are not entitled for Cash allowance in the form of Honorarium?
8) in reference to above Serial No the commercial staff has been deprived from their Fundamental Rights of receiving Cash Allowance in the form of Honorarium. Hence which para of National Human Right Act and Labour Act there has been violation of Rules and Rights of Commercial staff has been violated? What is the maximum and minimum amount Page 2 of 7 payable by the Management/ Administration etc. for the violation of the above Human Right Act? In case if the above said information are not available then kindly transfer my said application to the concerned CPIO of Ministry of Labour and the concerned CPIO of Ministry of National Human Rights Commission under intimation to undersigned as per Section 6(3) of RTI Act 2005.
The CPIO furnished a reply to the Appellant on 21.04.2023 stating as under:
I am to refer to your Request for Information under RTI Act 2005, received vide letter dated 24/03/2023 and to say that Point No. 3: The query is interrogatory in nature and do not fall under the definition of information and right to information as per section 2(f) of the RTI Act 2005.
I am to refer to your Request for Information under RTI Act 2005, received vide letter dated 24/03/2023 and to say that This is not a reply of your RTI queries. queries of the RTI application have already been transferred/forwarded to co CPIOs of the Railway Board for direct reply to the applicant. Reply will be concerned CPIOs to the applicant. Hence, additional part file on the a CPIO/(Sanjay Kumar, DDE(N)), Railway Board has been closed..
In case, you want to go for an appeal in connection with the information provided. you may appeal to the Appellate Authority indicated below within thirty day from the date of receipt of this letter.
Being dissatisfied, the appellant filed a First Appeal dated 02.05.2023. The FAA order is not on record.
Feeling aggrieved and dissatisfied, appellant approached the Commission with the instant Second Appeal.
Relevant Facts emerged during Hearing:
The following were present:-
Appellant: Present through Video-Conference. Respondent: Shri Dipak Kumar Biswas, DD(PG) & APIO, Shri Bharat Meena, SO/Security (E) and Shri S K Ray, DDE present in person.
The written submissions of the Appellant and the Respondent are taken on record.Page 3 of 7
The Appellant, during the hearing, reiterated the contents of his RTI application and instant appeal and submitted that till date complete and correct information has not been provided to him by the Respondent. He elaborated that information on point Nos. 3 and 4 of the RTI application has not been provided to him by the Respondent.
The Respondent, during the hearing, reiterated the contents of the reply given by the CPIO and submitted that they have informed the factual status in the matter to the Appellant.
Further, now at the stage of second appeal, they have furnished revised reply to the Appellant on point Nos. 3 and 4 of the RTI application, the relevant extracts are reproduced hereinbelow:
"Vide 2nd Appeal, RTI applicant has stated that the answer to Point no. 3 is so simple which is Yes or No for which both CPIO and FAA should use their common senses while responding to the applicant.
Information sought by the RTI applicant is interrogatory in nature as the RTI Act does not cast on the public authority any obligation to answer queries, as in the case, in which a petitioner attempts elicit answers to his questions with prefixes, such as, why, what, when and whether.
Further, information sought in the form of opinion/advice. A Public Authority is not required to furnish information which requires drawing of inference or making assumptions.
However, the details of overall work of Accounts Department are provided in Appendix II of INDIAN RAILWAYS CODE FOR THE ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT/ Part I Point No.4 This RTI was marked to undersigned vide MORLY/R/P/23/00532/7 dated 24.03.2024.
The information provided to RTI applicant was: Instructions/Guidelines are contained in Appendix II of INDIAN RAILWAYS CODE FOR THE ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT/ Part I. Page 4 of 7 Further Information provided now CPIO & AAO/ACII is answerable to the query related to Accounts Department only.
Hence, the reply of Point no. 4 is provided in heading- Administration-Annexure I of Appendix II of INDIAN RAILWAYS CODE FOR THE ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT/Part 1."
Decision:
The Commission at the outset after scrutinizing the records finds no scope of action in the matter with respect to information sought on point Nos. 3 and 4 of the RTI application as the query raised by the Appellant is based on conjectures which concededly does not conform to Section 2(f) of the RTI Act per se.
In this regard, the Appellant shall note that outstretching the interpretation of Section 2(f) of the RTI Act to include deductions and inferences to be drawn by the CPIO is unwarranted as it casts immense pressure on the CPIOs to ensure that they provide the correct deduction/inference to avoid being subject to penal provisions under the RTI Act. For the sake of clarity, the provision of Section 2(f) of the RTI Act is reproduced hereunder:
"2. Definitions.--In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,--
(f) "information" means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force;.."
His attention is also drawn towards a judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court on the scope and ambit of Section 2(f) of RTI Act in the matter of CBSE vs. Aditya Bandopadhyay&Ors. [CIVIL APPEAL NO.6454 of 2011] wherein it was held as under:
"35. At this juncture, it is necessary to clear some misconceptions about the RTI Act. The RTI Act provides access to all information that is available and existing.........A public authority is also not required to furnish Page 5 of 7 information which require drawing of inferences and/or making of assumptions. It is also not required to provide `advice' or `opinion' to an applicant, nor required to obtain and furnish any `opinion' or `advice' to an applicant. The reference to `opinion' or `advice' in the definition of `information' in section 2(f) of the Act, only refers to such material available in the records of the public authority. Many public authorities have, as a public relation exercise, provide advice, guidance and opinion to the citizens. But that is purely voluntary and should not be confused with any obligation under the RTI Act." (Emphasis Supplied) Similarly, in the matter of Khanapuram Gandaiah vs Administrative Officer & Ors. [SLP (CIVIL) NO.34868 OF 2009], the Hon'ble Supreme Court held as under:
"7....Public Information Officer is not supposed to have any material which is not before him; or any information he could have obtained under law. Under Section 6 of the RTI Act, an applicant is entitled to get only such information which can be accessed by the "public authority" under any other law for the time being in force. The answers sought by the petitioner in the application could not have been with the public authority nor could he have had access to this information and Respondent No. 4 was not obliged to give any reasons as to why he had taken such a decision in the matter which was before him...." (Emphasis Supplied) And, in the matter of Dr. Celsa Pinto, Ex-Officio Joint Secretary,(School Education) vs. The Goa State Information Commission [2008 (110) Bom L R 1238], the Hon'ble Bombay High Court held as under:
"..... In the first place, the Commission ought to have noticed that the Act confers on the citizen the right to information. Information has been defined by Section 2(f) as follows.
Section 2(f) -Information means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force;Page 6 of 7
The definition cannot include within its fold answers to the question why which would be the same thing as asking the reason for a justification for a particular thing. The Public Information Authorities cannot expect to communicate to the citizen the reason why a certain thing was done or not done in the sense of a justification because the citizen makes a requisition about information. Justifications are matter within the domain of adjudicating authorities and cannot properly be classified as information." (Emphasis Supplied) No intervention of the Commission is required in the matter.
The appeal is disposed of accordingly.
Vinod Kumar Tiwari (विनोद कुमार वििारी) Information Commissioner (सूचना आयुक्त) Authenticated true copy (अनिप्रमानणर् सत्यानपर् प्रनर्) (S. Anantharaman) Dy. Registrar 011- 26181927 Date Copy To:
The FAA, Railway Board, Rail Bhawan, New Delhi - 110001.Page 7 of 7
Recomendation(s) to PA under section 25(5) of the RTI Act, 2005:-
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