Central Information Commission
S. S. Ahmed vs Department Of Financial Services on 21 February, 2024
के ीय सूचना आयोग
Central Information Commission
बाबा गंगनाथ माग ,मुिनरका
Baba Gangnath Marg, Munirka
नई द ली, New Delhi - 110067
ि तीय अपील सं या / Second Appeal No. CIC/DOFSR/A/2022/139923
S. S. Ahmed ... अपीलकता /Appellant
VERSUS
बनाम
CPIO: The Jammu &
Kashmir Bank, Jammu ... ितवादीगण/Respondent
Relevant dates emerging from the appeal:
RTI : 13.06.2022 FA : 18.07.2022 SA : 17.08.2022
CPIO : 27.06.2022 FAO : 29.07.2022 Hearing : 14.02.2024
Date of Decision: 20.02.2024
CORAM:
Hon'ble Commissioner
_ANANDI RAMALINGAM
ORDER
1. The Appellant filed an RTI application dated 13.06.2022 seeking information on the following points:
(i) "Kindly provide the applicant the current status of the bank accounts maintained by the J&K Bank Ltd., Branch Link Road, Jammu with regard to M/s Himgiri Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. which is reportedly under NPA.
(ii) Kindly inform the applicant as to whether the case of the aforementioned customer has been settled under any Settlement /Amnesty Scheme by the Board of Directors of the J&K Bank Ltd. and in case reply is in affirmative then kindly share the details of such Settlement and in which Board Meeting the said Page 1 of 8 decision was taken and copy of such Board decision be shared with the applicant.
(iii) Also inform the applicant about the launching of any legal proceedings by the J&K Bank Ltd. against the aforementioned customer, if yes, the details may be shared with the applicant."
2. The CPIO replied vide letter dated 27.06.2022 and the same is reproduced as under :-
"In reference to information sought by you vide your RTI application dated 13.06.2022, It is informed that said information besides being of the nature of commercial confidence the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of third party, is also of the nature of personal information the disclosure of which would have no relationship to any public interest or activity and the same would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual and further, the said information is also available to the Bank in fiduciary relationship with its customers. As such, the Bank is exempted from disclosing the said information under Section 8 (1) (d), 8 (1) (e) & section 8 (1) (j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 and as such, cannot be provided."
3. Dissatisfied with the response received from the CPIO, the Appellant filed a First Appeal dated 18.07.2022. The FAA vide order dated 29.07.2022 upheld the reply given by the CPIO.
4. Aggrieved with the FAA's order, the Appellant approached the Commission with the instant Second Appeal dated 17.08.2022.
5. The Appellant was represented during the hearing by Advocate Supriya Chauhan through video conference and on behalf of the Respondent, Virendra Kaur, AGM & CPIO along with Rohit Anand, Law Officer attended the hearing through video conference.
Page 2 of 86. The Rep. of the Appellant emphasized on the grounds of the Second Appeal, relevant contents of which is reproduced hereunder:
"That it is submitted that the information sought for in the RTI Application....is required purely in public interest as the account holders of these NPA account(s) are Politicians/Public Figures viz. Mrs. Mamta Singh wife of Prof. Nirmal Singh (Former Deputy Chief Minister, J&K), Mr. Kavinder Gupta (Former Deputy Chief Minister, J&K) and Mr. Jugal Kishore Sharma (Member Parliament, Jammu-Poonch Parliamentary Constituency), who are beneficiaries of public money and J&K Bank has miserably failed to retrieve the public money which has been deposited by the public and tax payers with the Bank and the Bank is holding the money of these depositors in trust to the public as such, the appellant being a concerned citizen/public spirited person requires the information as sought in the RTI Application for placing the same before the general public so that general public comes to know about the status of this NPA account and the action initiated by the Bank towards the recovery of the same..."
xxx "The Refuge of Section 8(l)(d), 8(1)(e) and 8(1)(j) of RTI Act, 2005 is just to screen the aforementioned highly influential willful defaulters who are occupying prime positions in the society and are well connected in the corridors of power and have been casual in discharging their liability towards the Bank. The reliable inputs of the appellant reveal that the liability runs more than Rs.30.00 Crores and the amount was obtained for financing/establishing 3 MW Micro-Hydel project namely SAL - II at Sahoo in Chamba District of Himachal Pradesh. The account has been declared NPA in view of the defaults and thereafter the J&K Bank did not initiate any action towards the recovery of the loan amount and the matter has also been exclusively covered by Indian Express..."
xxx "Not only this, the Loan sanctioned to the defaulters in Crores has allegedly been given to them without any security and the bank has been left with no option to recover Page 3 of 8 the loan amount amounting to Rs.30.00 Crores and in this view of the matter it prima facie establishes that the Officers/Officials of the J&K Bank who sanctioned such a huge loan amount in favour of the high profile debtors now-turned-defaulters without keeping any sufficient security have done so by resorting to corruption and in corruption cases the refuge of exemption clauses under the RTI Act cannot be taken by the PIO or the FAA..."
"That the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Mardia Chemicals Limited vs. Union of India, (2004) 4 SCC 311, while considering the validity of SARFAESI Act and recovery of Non-Performing Assets by banks and financial institutions in India, held: -
'............It may be observed that though the transaction may have a character of a private contract yet the question of great importance behind such transactions as a whole having far reaching effect, on the economy of the country cannot be ignored, purely restricting it to individual transactions more particularly when financing is through banks and financial institutions utilizing the money of the people in general namely, the depositors in the banks and public money at the disposal of the financial institutions'.."
In the abovesaid backdrop, the Rep. of the Appellant added that the averred party had also availed of a one-time Amnesty Scheme offered by the Govt. by way of which the date of completion of the project was also extended, yet, yielded no results.
7. The Respondent reiterated the denial of the information primarily under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act as well as 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act as it relates to the bank account of a third party. It was further submitted that a similar matter has been already decided by the Commission upholding the denial of the information vide Second Appeal No. CIC/UTOJK/A/2020/140078/BKDIV decided on 13.01.2023 observing - "Perusal of the replies given by the respondent revealed that the information sought by the appellant was in the nature of commercial confidence as well as personal information of third party, the disclosure of which might have harmed the competitive of third party, and disclosure of which had no relationship to any public activity or interest. Accordingly, Page 4 of 8 exemption was claimed under section 8 (1) (d), (e) & (j) of the RTI Act. Perusal of the records further revealed that the account of M/s Himgiri Infrastructure Limited became NPA and bank had initiated recovery measures before appropriate forum, disclosure of information at this stage would cause prejudice to the bank. There appears to be no infirmity in the reply given by the respondent. It is pertinent to mention that the parties were not present to press his second appeal despite hearing notice. In the absence of both the parties and the matter having been not pressed for, there appears to be no public interest in further prolonging the matter. Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed."
8. The Commission after adverting to the facts and circumstances of the case, and perusal of records, observes that concededly, the information sought for in the RTI Application relates to a third-party account holder and the exemption of Section 8(1)(j) and 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act invoked by the CPIO cannot be faulted per se. However, the contention of the Respondent that a similar matter stands decided in their favor does not hold good in the instant case as the earlier matter was decided on the basis of the absence of both the parties during the second appeal hearing and no argument of larger public interest was tendered or adjudicated upon therein. Now, having considered the submissions of the Appellant in the instant matter, even if the aspect of larger public interest were to be considered as being the factual narrative for the information sought for in the RTI Application, the fact remains that the RTI queries fall short of conforming to Section 2(f) of the RTI Act leaving little scope for intervention in the matter. In other words, even as the Appellant has extensively relied on the aspect of larger public interest but the nature of the queries raised in the RTI Application are in the form of seeking for confirmation of speculative statements, particularly, on points no. (ii) & (iii) and with respect to point no. (i), the Appellant seeks for the CPIO to provide a clarification as to the "status" of the averred bank account, which requires the CPIO to deduce and provide answers. For a better understanding of the mandate of the RTI Act, 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.
Page 5 of 8In this regard, the Appellant's attention is 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 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:Page 6 of 8
"..... 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;
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)
9. In view of the foregoing observations, the Commission is not in a position to order for any relief in the matter.
10. The Appeal is disposed of accordingly.
Copy of the decision be provided free of cost to the parties.
Sd/-
आनंदी राम लंगम)
(Anandi Ramalingam) (आनं म
सूचना आयु )
Information Commissioner (सू
दनांक/Date: 20.02.2024
Authenticated true copy
Col S S Chhikara (Retd) कन ल एस एस िछकारा, ( रटायड )
Dy. Registrar (उप पंजीयक)
011-26180514
Page 7 of 8
Addresses of the parties:
1. The CPIO, RTI Cell
The Jammu & Kashmir Bank Ltd
Zonal Office : Jammu
Central - 1 Rail Head Complex
Jammu - 180004.
2. S. S. Ahmed (Advocate)
Page 8 of 8