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5. Last year payment for the month of March 2006 was made in 27th July 2006. What are the bases of such delayed payment and why would not the person responsible for such a delayed payment system would not be punished. (Query No. 5)."

To this Shri Nabarun Majumdar received a reply dated 24.7.07 from Shri S. Prabhu, Controller of Administration and CPIO, NTRO:

"1. The duty roster of casual monitors which has been referred to by you as a list is prepared on monthly basis for assigning duties to causal employees. The roster for casual monitors has been seen by you and accordingly you had worked in this office from 16 to 31 August 2006.

Subsequently, in a letter of 19.5.08 this Commission informed appellant Shri Nabarun Majumdar that the NTRO has since been included in the Second Schedule of the Right to Information Act and as such the provisions of RTI Act shall not apply to NTRO unless the information pertains to allegations of corruption or human rights violations. In view of this, the Commission had decided that "the appeal filed by you is not maintainable and the same has been rejected." In a representation of 11.6.08, however, Shri Majumdar has submitted as follows:

However, Shri R. N. Gupta, Controller of Administration, NTRO submitted that in his appeal before us appellant Shri Nabarun Majumdar has prayed as follows:
"If you see through my appeal you can easily make out that it definitely pertains to corrupt processes of preferential treatment and very much depleting my Human Rights."

Shri Gupta submitted that this plea would amount to appellant accepting that the NTRO is exempt from the application of the RTI u/s 24(1) In the present case, the issue before us is simple. At the time that the RTI application was moved NTRO was not an exempt Organization, since it had not been listed in the Second Schedule. This Organization was listed in the Second Schedule, as per GSR No. 235(E) dated 27.3.08 whereas the present request was moved on 22.6.07. However, in exempting this information, Govt. has surely found the NTRO to be an Organization meriting listing among the Intelligence & Security Organizations, which are outside the purview of the RTI Act. The issue before us, therefore, is that if the NTRO is such an organization, should it be subjected to the scrutiny of the RTI Act even at the time it had not been listed in the Second Schedule. To enable us to determine this issue, the hearing is adjourned to 12th November 2009 at 4.00 p.m. Should he wish, appellant Shri Nabarun Majumdar can appear before us in Chandigarh through video conference.

The appeal was then heard on 12.11.2009. The following are present:

Appellant Sh. Nabarun Majumdar Respondents Mr. R. N. Gupta, IPS, Controller of Admn.
Lt. Col. M. V. Ganapathy, Dy. Dir. (Admn) Mr. S. K. Sharma, O.S.D. CMS Mr. Ram Kumar, O.S.D. Admn.
Shri R. N. Gupta, Controller of Administration, NTRO submitted that since the NTRO has already provided such information as it held to appellant Shri Majumdar, it will not take the plea of exemption u/s 24(1). Appellant Shri Majumdar on the other hand submitted that the responses to his questions amount to evasion rather than providing information. Accordingly, the questions were examined one by one. From this it would appear that only question No. 1, which has a second part wherein Sh. Majumdar has sought documentary evidence of the list of casual monitors for April 2004 to March 2007, not been responded to. Shri S. K. Sharma, OSD CMS placed before us copies of the list of Casual Monitors for 2005-06 and 2006-07.