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4. Appellate Authority had also consulted the third-parties in regard to the information listed at Sl.Nos.A.3 and A.4 in appellant's RTI-application and considered their objections. She concluded that these items of information were given over by the third-parties into the control of the Income Tax Department, which was obliged to maintain its confidentiality. She also concluded that, though held by the Income Tax Department, the information had all the characteristics of being personal to the third- parties who filed them before the department, and should not be authorized to be disclosed within the meaning of Section 8(1)(j) of the Act. She held that there was no public interest that would warrant disclosure of this admittedly personal information.

party members of the Partnership Firm referred the Appellate Authority to the family arrangement before the death of Shri Om Parkash, in which the appellant was given a share in the HUF and ceased to have any claim as its member. He had already separated from the HUF. Reference was also made to the civil suit initiated by the appellant to assert his rights as legal heir of late Shri Om Parkash.

b). In this case as well, Appellate Authority noted that appellant was using the RTI Act to access an information (which the third-parties had provided to the Income Tax Department in the process of filing their Income Tax Returns) without first having established through a judicial process his (appellant's) right to be treated as the legitimate legal-heir to Late Shri Om Parkash, both relating to the HUF and the Partnership Firms. She, therefore, concluded that till such time as the dispute regarding the appellant's claims to be Late Shri Om Parkash's legal heir remained unsettled, it would be inappropriate to predetermine his right and allow him access to all the information relating to the HUF and the Partnership Firms. If allowed, this would seem like an indirect acknowledgement of appellant's claims which have not yet been judicially determined, and which other members of the HUF as well as the members of the Partnership Firm were strenuously questioning.

c. In filing these Returns, Late Shri Om Parkash was representing the appellant as well as his other progenies.

d. Appellant claims that he was naturally entitled to have access to all the information which Late Shri Om Parkash filed on behalf of the family as well as the family-run businesses since appellant as the son of Late Shri Om Parkash could not be denied such an information.

12. In his further submissions, appellant has articulated the same point, arguing that a reference under Section 11(1) of the RTI Act to third-parties by the respondents was uncalled for because what the appellant was seeking was not any third-party information but an information to which he had a direct natural claim, being the son of Late Shri Om Parkash. He has argued at length about how he was victim of a criminal conspiracy by other members of the HUF and the partnership firms following the death of their father. He has alleged corruption and malpractices by the Income Tax Officers and criminal acts by the so-called third-parties to defraud the government of its rightful revenues. Besides, the appellant has also relied on the Single Bench decision dated 14th December, 2009 of this Commission in File No CIC/LS/A/2009/000647 (Rakesh Kumar Gupta Vs Commissioner of Income Tax). He has also relied on another Single Bench decision dated 21.12.2009 of the Commission in File No CIC/LS/A/2009/000626 (Smt Milly Ghosh Vs Commissioner of Income Tax) to buttress his case.

14. The definition of third-parties in the RTI Act is contained in Section 2(n), which reads as follows:-

(n) "third party" means a person other than the citizen making a request for information and includes a public authority.

15. The words are clear and unambiguous. Any party other than the applicant in a given RTI-matter is a third-party for the purposes of this Act.

16. In our view, the right of a person to be treated as a third-party vis-à-vis a certain RTI-application cannot be extinguished merely because the RTI-applicant claims that he has had a natural right to receive the information which the third-party either possesses or has lent into the control of a public authority such as the Income Tax Department, as in this case. For the purposes of the RTI Act, if a set of information has been provided to the public authority by a certain individual, or by a group of individuals, that individual or the group thereof gains the role of a third-party vis-a-vis another individual, who might seek this information through an RTI-application. The fact that the latter individual is related to the former in a composite entity such as the HUF or the partnership Firm will not alter the equation between him and those other individuals regardless of whether there was an outstanding dispute between the two or there was none. In other words, if an individual seeks a set of information held by a public authority and that public authority knows that such information has not been provided to it by the same individual but by others, the public authority cannot decide to disclose this information to the former unless those who actually supplied the information to the public authority were consulted within the meaning of Section 7(7) and Section 11(1) of the RTI Act. A claim by such an individual seeking the information that he was naturally entitled to receive this information could not alter the equation of third-party between him and the others.