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1. The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) IFCI Limited, New Delhi. The appellant seeking information is as under:-

(i) All the Noting Files, including the noting files relating to NHRC Case No. 3384/ 30/0/2016 from beginning till date.
(ii) All the correspondence Files, including file relating to NHRC Case No. 3384/30/0/2016 from beginning till date. Etc.

2. The CPIO vide letter dated 10.06.2019 has denied the requested information under section 8 (1) (j) of RTI Act. Being dissatisfied with the same, the appellant has filed first appeal dated 29.07.2019 and requested that the information should be provided to him. The FAA vide its order dated 09.08.2019 upheld CPIO's reply and disposed of the appeal. He has filed a second appeal before the Commission on the ground that information sought has not been provided to him and requested to direct the respondent to provide complete and correct information.

Decision:

7. The Commission, after hearing the submissions of both the parties and after perusal of records, observes that the appellant has sought information related to introduction of pension scheme for the employees of IFCI and other queries related thereto. That the queries of the appellant are general, wide and non-specific as all the file notings, correspondences related to the NHRC case are being sought from the respondent without specifying the particular file no., subject, document number etc. That the appellant has expected that the CPIO firstly should make a research and analyze the documents and then provide information to the appellant. But the CPIO is not supposed to create information; or to interpret information; or or to furnish clarification to the appellant under the ambit of the RTI Act. As per Section 2(f) of the RTI Act, the reasons/opinions/advices can only be provided to the applicants if it is available on record of the public authority. The CPIO cannot create information in the manner as sought by the appellant. The CPIO is only a communicator of information based on the records held in the office and hence, he cannot expected to do research work to deduce anything from the material therein and then supply it to him.

9. That the respondent has contended that whatever information they had in their records has already been shown to the appellant and the appellant has inspected all the relevant files relating to the pension scheme. Since, the guard files are the policy files only, therefore the relevant reply has already been provided to the appellant. That the FAA has further confirmed that only these files are available in the records of the public authority. That as far as information relating to NHRC case is concerned, the relevant files related to the complaints filed by the appellant is pending adjudication before the NHRC, therefore the said information has been denied by the respondent. That in this regard, the respondent during the course of his submission has referred one decision of the Commission titled as "Milap Choraria vs. Central Board of Direct Taxes Department of Revenue Minsitry of Finance"

(CIC/AT/C/2008/00025). The Commission has gone through the said case carefully and observes that since the personal interest of the RTI Applicant as against the larger public interest was involved in the matter, the inspection of the files was declined in the said case. Hence, the judgment referred by the respondent has relevance in the present case. Therefore, the inspection of the relevant documents related to NHRC case has rightly been denied by the respondent.

10. Moreover, the appellant has contended that there are documents which show as to why the said scheme is introduced. However, the respondent has contended that few documents have been shown to the appellant but there was no file noting.