Central Information Commission
Mr.Nitesh Kr Tripathi vs Allahabad Bank on 1 February, 2012
CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
Club Building, Opposite Ber Sarai Market,
Old JNU Campus, New Delhi - 110067.
Tel: +91-11-26161796
Decision No. CIC/SG/C/2011/001282/17913
Complaint No. CIC/SG/C/2011/001282
Complainant : Mr. Nitesh Kumar Tripathi,
R.No. 101, Boys Hostel
RIMS&R Saipai- Etawah
(UP)-206501
Respondent : Mr. Chitranjan Sahay
CPIO & AGM (Law) Allahabad Bank Head Office, NS Road Kolkatta West Bengal RTI application filed on : 04/07/2011 PIO replied : 12/08/2011 First Appeal filed on : 05/08/2011 Complaint filed on : 21/10/2011 Complaint notice issued on : 01/11/2011 Sl. Information Sought Reply of the Public Information Officer (PIO)
1. Please provide me details of assets The statement of Assets &Liabilities as submitted by declared by your officers above scale III various officers are classified as personal information all over India. about individuals, having no relationship with public interest in general, and disclosure of which may cause unwarranted invasion in their privacy. Further, such information, is held by the Bank in fiduciary relationships with their employees. Thus sans, any larger public interest, these information are exempt from disclosure u/s 8(1)(e) & 8 (1) (j)of the RTI Act, 2005.
2. Please provide me details of fund spent Implementation of the RTI Act, in the Bank is an exercise on implementation of RTI Act, 2005 undertaken in the usual course of fulfillment of regulatory ,since 2005 Up to 2011 (Year wise obligations. The funds spent on RTI matters have not been details) segregated.
3. Please provide me details of the number As per the regulatory requirements Bank submits Annual/ of RTI application's Quarterly report on receipt & disposal of RTI applications / received in every month during appeals to the Hon'ble information Commission. A copy of 2006 up to 2011 and first appeal CIC such reports ( 2005-06 2006 07. 2007-08 2008 09 2009- notices. Also provide me details of no. 10). Mar10 Jun 10, Sep 10, Dec 10, Mar 11) are enclosed 0f how many times CIC has charged in 09 pages of A-4 size.
fine and other punishment against how The Bank has designated 47 CPIO s all over the country. to many officers of your Bank till date. provide information to the citizens under the RTI Act. The hearings notices of the Hon'ble commission arc received directly by the various CPIO & data is not consolidated
4. Please provide with state wise details of Such data is not segregated. money deposited in your Bank who has not been operate since over 30 years.
Page 1 of 35. How many application your Bank Govt. Data regarding mobilization of loan proposals, their receipt staff, Kishan Credit Cards, Housing / disposal and rejection status is maintained at Branch Loan, Car loan and out of them how level.
many were responded positively since Consolidated state-wise data is not maintained at Head
2006 up to 2011 (year wise and state office level.
wise details is required).
Grounds for Complaint:
Non-receipt of information from the Board.
Submission received from the PIO:
PIO submitted that "The RTI application dated 04/0712011 of the complainant was received on 19/07/2011. The CP!O provided a reply vide letter HO/RTI/CPIO/853 of 12/08/2010. Meantime, the complainant had filed an appeal dated 05/08/2011 before the First Appellate authority who vide his decision dated 26/08/2011, observed that appeal was written prior to the disposal by the CPIO" and he directed that a copy of the CPIO's reply be sent to the appellant again. The CPIO, compiled with the decision of the First Appellate Authority, vide his letter H0/Leg&/RTI/1O94 of 05/09/2011 and provided a copy again.
The copies of the CPIO's reply dated 12/08/2011, Decision dated 26/08/2011 of the FAA and compliance letter dated 05/09/2011 of the CPIO, held in our record are enclosed. Sir, in this case, the CPIO had provided a reply to the RTI applicant. Further a copy of the same was again sent in compliance of the direction of the First Appellate authority. Thus reply has already been provided twice Further as the complainant has alleged non receipt of the reply being sent to him again. In view of the above, it is prayed that the matter may kindly be put to rest."
Relevant Facts emerging during Hearing:
The following were present Complainant: Mr. Nitesh Kumar Tripathi on telephone through mobile no. 09208235851; Respondent: Mr. Chitranjan Sahay, CPIO & AGM (Law) on video conference from NIC-Kolkata Studio;
The Commission has already decided in CIC/AT/A/2008/01262/SG/2109 dated 27/02/2009 and CIC/SG/A/2009/001436/4247 dated 23 July 2009 that the assets of public servants would have to be disclosed when a citizen uses the Right to Information.
The Commission can allow denial of information only based on the exemptions listed under Section 8 (1) of the act. The PIO has claimed that the information should not be disclosed since it is exempted from disclosure under Section 8 (1) (j).
Under Section 8 (1) (j) information which has been exempted is defined as:
"information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information:"
To qualify for this exemption the information must satisfy the following criteria:
1. It must be personal information.
Words in a law should normally be given the meanings given in common language. In common language we would ascribe the adjective 'personal' to an attribute which applies to an individual and not to an Institution or a Corporate. From this it flows that 'personal' cannot be related to Institutions, organisations or corporates. (Hence we could state that Section 8 (1) (j) cannot be applied when the information concerns institutions, organisations or corporates.).
Page 2 of 3The phrase 'disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest' means that the information must have some relationship to a Public activity.
Various Public authorities in performing their functions routinely ask for 'personal' information from Citizens, and this is clearly a public activity. When a person applies for a job, or gives information about himself to a Public authority as an employee, or asks for a permission, licence or authorisation, all these are public activities. The information sought in this case by the appellant has certainly been obtained in the pursuit of a public activity.
We can also look at this from another aspect. The State has no right to invade the privacy of an individual. There are some extraordinary situations where the State may be allowed to invade on the privacy of a Citizen. In those circumstances special provisos of the law apply, always with certain safeguards. Therefore it can be argued that where the State routinely obtains information from Citizens, this information is in relationship to a public activity and will not be an intrusion on privacy.
Therefore we can state that disclosure of information such as assets of a Public servant, -which is routinely collected by the Public authority and routinely provided by the Public servants,- cannot be construed as an invasion on the privacy of an individual. There will only be a few exceptions to this rule which might relate to information which is obtained by a Public authority while using extraordinary powers such as in the case of a raid or phone-tapping. Any other exceptions would have to be specifically justified. Besides the Supreme Court has clearly ruled that even people who aspire to be public servants by getting elected have to declare their property details. If people who aspire to be public servants must declare their property details it is only logical that the details of assets of those who are public servants must be considered to be disclosable. Hence the exemption under Section 8(1) (j) cannot be applied in the instant case.
In view of this the PIO's claim for exemption for query-1 is not upheld.
Decision:
The Complaint is allowed.
The PIO is directed to provide the complete information as per available records on query-1 to the Complainant before 25 February 2012. This decision is announced in open chamber.
Notice of this decision be given free of cost to the parties. Any information in compliance with this Order will be provided free of cost as per Section 7(6) of RTI Act.
Shailesh Gandhi Information Commissioner 01 February 2012 (In any correspondence on this decision, mention the complete decision number. (SH) Page 3 of 3