Central Information Commission
Saket Kumar vs Chief Commissioner Of Income Tax (Cca), ... on 10 August, 2021
Author: Neeraj Kumar Gupta
Bench: Neeraj Kumar Gupta
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/CCITB/A/2019/161777
Mr. Saket Kumar ... अपीलकता/Appellant
VERSUS
बनाम
CPIO ... ितवादी /Respondent
O/o. the Director of Income Tax
(CPC), 48/1 & 48/2, Prestige Alpha
Beratena Agrahara, Electronic City
Hosur Road, Bangalore-560500
Relevant dates emerging from the appeal:-
RTI : 08-08-2019 FA : 29-09-2019 SA : 20-12-2019
CPIO : 05-09-2019 FAO : 16-10-2019 Hearing : 05-08-2021
ORDER
1. The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), O/o. the Director of Income Tax (CPC), Bangalore. The appellant seeking information is as under:-
"certified copies of ITR-V for Assessment Years 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18 & 2018-19 for the PAN: AANTS7586A i.e. Sri Sai Welfare Trust. He had alleged that fake audit report, other documents and ITR-V for the above Assessment Years had been prepared and returns filed using his forged signatures. He stated that crores of rupees had been embezzled by the Trust and that he had filed a complaint with Mahagama Police Station in this regard."
2. As the CPIO had not provided the requested information, the appellant filed the first appeal dated 29.09.2019 requesting that the information should be provided to him. The first appellate authority was ordered on 16.10.2019 and disposed of his first appeal. He filed a second appeal u/Section 19(3) of the RTI Act before the Commission on the ground that information has not been Page 1 of 6 provided to him and requested the Commission to direct the respondent to provide complete and correct information.
Hearing:
3. The appellant attended the hearing through audio-call. The respondent, Ms. Rajamathangi V, CPIO attended the hearing through audio-call.
4. The written submissions of the parties are taken on record.
5. The appellant submitted that no information has been provided to him by the respondent on his RTI application dated 08.08.2019.
6. The respondent submitted that the CPIO had responded vide letter dated 05.09.2019, stating that the applicant was seeking income tax return details of Sri Sai Welfare Trust, which is Third Party information. The CPIO drew the attention of the applicant to Section 8(1)(e) of the RTI Act and placed reliance on the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Shri Girish Ramachandra Deshpande (SLP No.27734 of 2012), in explaining that the information provided in the return is held by CPC in its fiduciary capacity and the same is treated as confidential. Hence, unless larger public interest is established in seeking this information, the same cannot be disclosed. The respondent further submitted that the details of Secretary of the Trust are not available in the return of income CPC portal, to ascertain whether the claim of the appellant is genuine or not. The appellant claims to be the Secretary of the Trust. However, he has alleged that the Trust has embezzled crores of rupees by forging his signatures. This indicates an apparent dispute between the Trustees of the Trust. In this scenario, divulging information about the Trust would certainly amount to parting with its income tax details to a Third Party-the appellant and would be a breach of its fiduciary trust in CPC.
Decision:
7. The Commission, after hearing the submissions of both the parties and after perusal of records, observes that the appellant is aggrieved that the information has been wrongly denied to him by the respondent as sought by him in his RTI application. In this regard, the respondent has categorically informed the appellant that the information sought is personal information of third party which is exempted from disclosure under Section 8(1)(j) and 8(1)(e) of the RTI Act. The Commission further observed that the information sought by the appellant is personal information of third party which is exempted from disclosure under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. Further, the said information is held by the respondent public authority in fiduciary relationship which is also exempted from disclosure under Section 8(1)(e) of the RTI Act.Page 2 of 6
8. Reliance was also placed on the decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande vs. Central Information Commission & ors. SLP(C) No. 27734 of 2012 dated 03.10.2012 wherein it was held as under:
"14. The details disclosed by a person in his income tax returns are "personal information" which stand exempted from disclosure under clause (j) of Section 8(1) of the RTI Act, unless involves a larger public interest and the central Public Information officer or the state public Information officer or the Appellate Authority is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information."
9. The Commission took note of the issue regarding the "personal information" held by an individual in its personal capacity and the personal information held by the entities/corporations/trusts in their private capacity. In this context, a reference was drawn on the Hon'ble Delhi High Court decision in Naresh Trehan vs. Rakesh Kumar Gupta and Ors.( 2015) 216 DLT 156 wherein it was held:
"20. It has been contended by the petitioners that the expression "personal information" must also extend to information relating to corporate entities. Inasmuch as they may also fall within the definition of expression "person" under the General Clauses Act, 1897 as well as under the Income Tax Act, 1961. However, I am unable to accept this contention for the reason that the expression "personal information" as used in clause (j) of Section 8(1) of the Act has to be read in the context of information relating to an individual. A plain reading of the aforesaid clause would indicate that the expression "personal information" is linked with "invasion of privacy of the individual".
The use of the word "the" before the word "individual" immediately links the same with the expression "personal information"
21. Black's law dictionary, sixth edition, inter alia, defines the word "personal" as under:- "The word "personal" means appertaining to the person; belonging to an individual; limited to the person; having the nature or partaking of the qualities of human beings, or of movable property."
23. In my view, the aforesaid reasoning would also be applicable to the expression "personal" used in Section 8(1)(j) of the Act. The expression 'individual' must be construed in an expansive sense and would include a body of individuals. The said exemption would be available even to unincorporated entities as also private, closely held undertaking which are in substance alter egos of their shareholders. However, the expression individual cannot be used as a synonym for Page 3 of 6 the expression 'person'. Under the General Clauses Act, 1897 a person is defined to "include any company or association or body of individuals, whether incorporated or not". Thus, whereas a person would include an individual as well as incorporated entities and artificial persons, the expression 'individual' cannot be interpreted to include such entities. The context in which, the expression "personal information" is used would also exclude it application to large widely held corporations. While, confidential information of a corporation is exempt from disclosure under Section 8(1) (d) of the Act, there is no scope to exclude other information relating to such corporations under Section 8(1)(j) of the Act as the concept of a personal information cannot in ordinary language be understood to mean information pertaining to a public corporation."
22. A perusal of the above definition also indicates that the ordinary usage of the word "personal" is in the context of an individual human being and not a corporate entity. The U.S. Supreme Court has also interpreted the expression "personal" to be used in the context of an individual human being and not a corporate entity. In the case of Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T Inc: 2011 US LEXIS 1899 the US Supreme Court considered the meaning of the expression "personal privacy" in the context of the Freedom of Information Act, which required Federal Agencies to make certain records and documents publically available on request. Such disclosure was exempt if the records "could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy". The U.S. Supreme Court held that the expression "Personal" used in the aforesaid context could not be extended to corporations because the word "personal" ordinarily refers to individuals. The Court held that the expression "personal" must be given its ordinary meaning. The relevant extract of the said judgment is as under: "Person" is a defined term in the statute;
"personal" is not. When a statute does not define a term, we typically "give the phrase its ordinary meaning," [Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S., 559 U.S. 133, 130 S. Ct. 1265, 176 L. Ed. 2d 1, 8 (2010)]. "Personal" ordinarily refers to individuals. We do not usually speak of personal characteristics, personal effects, personal correspondence, personal influence, or personal tragedy as referring to corporations or other artificial entities. This is not to say that corporations do not have correspondence, influence, or tragedies of their own, only that we do not use the word "personal" to describe them. Certainly, if the chief Page 4 of 6 executive officer of a corporation approached the chief financial officer and said, "I have something personal to tell you," we would not assume the CEO was about to discuss company business. Responding to a request for information, an individual might say, "that's personal."
A company spokesman, when asked for information about the company, would not. In fact, we often use the word "personal" to mean precisely the opposite of business related: We speak of personal expenses and business expenses, personal life and work life, personal opinion and a company's view."
The Commission referred to the Hon'ble Supreme Court decision in CBSE v. Aditya Bandhopadhyay (2011) 8 SCC 497 wherein it was held as under:
22. ".... But the words 'information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship' are used in section 8(1)(e) of RTI Act in its normal and well recognized sense, that is to refer to persons who act in a fiduciary capacity, with reference to a specific beneficiary or beneficiaries who are to be expected to be protected or benefited by the actions of the fiduciary - a trustee with reference to the beneficiary of the trust, a guardian with reference to a minor/physically/infirm/mentally challenged, a parent with reference to a child, a lawyer or a chartered accountant with reference to a client, a doctor or nurse with reference to a patient, an agent with reference to a principal, a partner with reference to another partner, a director of a company with reference to a share-holder, an executor with reference to a legatee, a receiver with reference to the parties to a lis, an employer with reference to the confidential information relating to the employee, and an employee with reference to business dealings/transaction of the employer."
10. The Commission is agreed with the response given by the respondent to the RTI application of the appellant. Hence, no further intervention of the Commission is required in the matter.
11. With the above observations, the appeal is disposed of.Page 5 of 6
12. Copy of the decision be provided free of cost to the parties.
नीरज कु मार गु ा) Neeraj Kumar Gupta (नीरज ा सूचना आयु ) Information Commissioner (सू दनांक / Date : 05-08-2021 Authenticated true copy (अिभ मािणत स यािपत ित) S. C. Sharma (एस. सी. शमा), Dy. Registrar (उप-पंजीयक), (011-26105682) Addresses of the parties:
1. CPIO O/o. the Director of Income Tax (CPC), 48/1 & 48/2, Prestige Alpha Beratena Agrahara, Electronic City Hosur Road, Bangalore-560500
2. Mr. Saket Kumar Page 6 of 6