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Central Information Commission

Shri Surendra Sharma vs The New India Assurance Company Limited on 14 July, 2008

                CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
                              .....
                                      F.No.CIC/AT/A/2008/00267
                                        Dated, the 14th July, 2008.

 Appellant      : Shri Surendra Sharma

 Respondents : The New India Assurance Company Limited

This matter came up for hearing on 03.07.2008 pursuant to Commission's hearing notice dated 14.05.2008. Appellant was absent, while the respondents were represented by Shri Pushkar Upadhyay, Manager & CPIO and Shri P.K.Sinha, Chief Manager.

2. The appellant through his RTI-application dated 09.10.2007 asked for certain information relating to another employee of the public authority, viz. Shri J.K. Gupta; and also relating to a conference of the CRMs held from 31.08.2007 to 02.09.2007 and, relating to interior decoration of 4 Branch Offices and Regional Training Centre of the public authority.

3. The queries and the CPIO's corresponding replies thereof are discussed below:-

Item No.1:

Respondents informed the Commission that except property-returns and petrol bills, all information has been provided to the appellant through a communication dated 05.11.2007.

As regards property returns, the respondents cited Commission's decision in Raj Kumar Vs. Delhi Police; Appeal No.CIC/AT/A/2006/00134; Date of Decision: 10.7.2006, whose ratio covers this variety of information.

Regarding petrol bills, the respondents demanded from the appellant Rs.10,000/- under Section 7(3) of the RTI Act as further-fee (cost) for providing the information. According to them, since the information requested covers over 2 years, the respondents shall be required to incur expenditure both in terms of money and time to retrieve it from the 'Binders' and supply it to the appellant.

As a commercial organization engaged in a competitive business, respondents argued, that they cannot afford to supply such voluminous information free of cost to applicants such as this, which admittedly imposes cost on the respondents. They have, therefore, declined to disclose this information except on payment of cost by the appellant.

Decision:

Property Returns have been rightly withheld from disclosure as the information is personal to the third-party and given to the respondents confidentially on an assurance that its confidentiality shall not be breached except under specific circumstances such as disciplinary / vigilance enquires against the third-party. Since this information is covered by the Commission decision in the above-referred case, this information need not be disclosed.

In regard to demand of Rs.10,000/- as cost under Section 7(3) of the RTI Act, it is felt that it is necessary to consider the reasonableness of such demand as well as the estimate of the cost.

For the limited purpose of determining the reasonableness of the estimated cost of supplying the petrol bills, matter is remitted to the AA, Shri A.R.Sekar, General Manager, with the direction that within 3 weeks from the date of the receipt of this order, he shall carefully examine the estimate of demand for cost made on the appellant, and give his finding which shall be intimated to the appellant and the CPIO for compliance, with a copy endorsed to the Commission.

Item Nos.2(A), 2(B) and 2(C)(part):

Decision:

As regards item 2(A), no disclosure is necessary as this query is in the nature of seeking explanations of the respondents, which they are not obliged to give under Section 2(f) of the RTI Act.

Information corresponding to items 2(B) and 2(C) has been provided to the appellant through CPIO's communication dated 24.10.2007. There shall be no further disclosure obligation as regards item 2(B).

In regard to item 2(C), one part of the information which has not been supplied is the expenditure incurred in booking rooms. CPIO is directed to supply this information within 2 weeks from the date of the receipt of this order.

Item Nos.2(C)(part) and 3:

As regards item 3, respondents have stated that this information needs to be collected from 4 Branch Offices and a Training Centre of the public authority, which will involve incurring extra and avoidable cost for the respondents. They have demanded Rs.2,000/- for disclosing this information.

As regards item 2(C), the respondents have demanded a sum of Rs.5,000/- for collecting copies of T.E. Bills [sic] from all 26 Regional Incharges and head Office Executives, who were the occupants of the rooms in these lodges during the Conference. According to the respondents, compiling this information necessarily involves incurring expenditure and hence cannot be provided either free of cost, or by charging only the photocopying charges. Section 7(3) necessarily comes in to play given the nature of voluminous and diffused information which the appellant is interested in receiving from the respondents.

Decision:

Matter relating to the above 2 demands of further-fee (cost) under Section 7(3) is remitted to the AA, Shri A.R. Sekar, General Manager, with the direction to examine the reasonability of the estimate within 3 weeks from the date of the receipt of this order, and convey his decision to both the appellant and the CPIO for compliance.

General:

4. The respondents have also brought a general complaint against the appellant. They have pointed out that this appellant, along with certain others, has filed over 07 applications seeking 39 items of voluminous and diffused information. According to the respondents, the present appellant is an employee of the Oriental Insurance Company Limited and as per the information of the respondents, vigilance enquiries are pending against him in his parent organization. His brother, Shri Rajendra Sharma is an employee of The New India Assurance Company Limited (the respondent-public authority), who has also been facing disciplinary action for submitting fake LTS bills [sic]. Respondents have urged that they are most happy to provide information to any applicant who approaches them under the RTI Act, but when the mischief of harassing and intimidating a public authority is manifest in the actions of the appellants such as this, providing to him information without charging the cost under Section 7(3) of the Act would amount to surrendering to the mischief. They have further pointed out that if no cost is charged under Section 7(3), the respondents will be wholly within their right to decline to disclose the information under Section 7(9) of the Act, since this application, singly as well as collectively with others, would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority, which they cannot afford themselves being a commercial organization engaged in competition with private entities for the same business.

5. The concerns of the respondents are noted. The AA is directed to factor these into his decision about the reasonableness of the cost demanded from the appellant.

6. The appeal is disposed of with these directions.

7. Copy of this decision be sent to the parties.

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(A.N. TIWARI) INFORMATION COMMISSIONER Authenticated by -

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( D.C. SINGH ) Under Secretary & Asst. Registrar Page 4 of 4