The Right to Information
For BCAJ March,
2007
Narayan Varma
Providing
stamp of ‘ECNR’ on the passports
Shri Girish Mittal
of Mumbai filed a complaint with the CIC on
The case was
fixed for hearing on
“In
the absence of the Appellant, the Commission heard the Respondents who stated
that the Appellant had been issued the passport as also the ECNR stamp. In fact, they had written to the Appellant
and asked him to come to the Department to get the ECNR stamp but the Appellant
represented to other Departments and not to the Department directly
concerned. In the meanwhile, the
Respondents gave him the ECNR stamp after charging Rs.300 from him. This they agreed was done through oversight. The Commission, therefore, directs the
Respondents to compensate the Appellant by a refund of Rs.300”.
Thus, it may be observed that Commission decides
the matter fairly & properly even when the Applicant/Complainant does not
appear.
(Shri Girish
Mittal v. Regional passport Office, Mumbai:
No.CIC/OK/C/2006/00146 of 7.2.2007)
Seeking views of the CPIO from the Office of CIT
The appellant, Shri Virendra
Mittal of Indore had sought
information in the form of various queries, had sought certain documents
submitted by third parties to the IT department and had sought views of the CPIO
on various queries raised by him.
Commission’s Decision:
“There
is as such no denial of information to the appellant. The appellant should clearly identify and
specify the information required by him, so that the information could be
furnished to him. The views and opinion
of the CPIO, which does not exist in any material form, should not be asked
for. This appeal was unnecessary, hence,
disposed of”.
From the above decision, it will be observed that under the RTI Act, one
can’t ask the views or opinion but can only seek information.
(Shri Virendra Mittal,
Third party information from IT Department
In number of
cases information regarding income-tax details of any third party sought has
been denied by CIC. Hereunder two
interesting cases connected with the information sought on tax-matters of
charitable trusts:
·
Decision in People’s
The appellant
had sought copies of the income-tax returns, balance sheets along with annexure
and assessment orders for 1999 to 2003, filed by a third party who has filed a
criminal complaint against the appellant.
The CPIO and the appellate authority have refused to
provide the information on the ground that the information sought pertains to
third party who has strongly objected to disclosure of information. The CPIO has also contended that income-tax
returns and related documents are in the nature of personal information, the
disclosure of which are barred u/s.8(1)(j) of the Act.
The appellate
authority has correctly applied exemption u/s.8(1)(j)
of the Act from disclosure of information.
The decision of the appellate authority is therefore, upheld.
·
Shri Mubeen Khan v.
Directorate of Income Tax (Exemptions)
CPIO had relied
on the decision as reported above.
Commission’s Decision noted that income–tax exemption issued by the
department was furnished to the appellant.
However, it is justified that the documents submitted by the Trust, a
third party, has been denied after seeking it’s concurrence u/s.11(1) of the
RTI Act. CIC also noted that there is
moreover no public interest in disclosure of the information sought.
The
RTI Act:
To continue the
study………
Section 21 is the
first section of the VIth and the last chapter of the
RTI Act. It protects persons acting in
good faith. As noted in the section, no
suit, prosecution or other legal proceedings shall lie against any person for
anything done or intended to be done which is in good faith under the RTI Act
or any rule made thereunder. Thus, this section protects all functionaries
in the implementation of the RTI Act such as Information Commissioners.
Section 22 is a very
interesting section and gives great boost to the power of the RTI Act. Section enables to obtain information in
large number of cases which otherwise would be denied. Section provides that the provisions of the
RTI Act shall have effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent therewith
contained in the Official Secrets Act, 1923 and any other law for the time
being in force or in any instrument having effect by
virtue of any law other than the RTI Act.
As readers are
aware, Section 138 of the Income-tax Act deals with “Disclosure of information
respecting assessees”. Sub-section (1) grants certain power to CBDT
and other officers specified by it to disclose various information respecting assessees. However,
sub-section (2) overrides sub-section (1), it reads as under:
(2) Notwithstanding anything contained
in sub-section (1) or any other law for the time being in force, the Central
Government may, having regard to the practices and usages customary or any
other relevant factors, by order notified in the Official Gazette, direct that
no information or document shall be furnished or produced by a public servant
in respect of such matters relating to such class of assessees
or except to such authorities as may be specified in the order.
Thus, it may be
observed that both laws i.e. the RTI Act and the
Income-tax Act state:
In RTI Act :
:Notwithstanding anything
inconsistent therewith contained in any other law for the time being in force………..
In the IT Act :
Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law
for the time being in force………..
Now the issue
arises as to which law will prevail:
When the IT Act prohibits disclosure but the RTI Act permits. Time will show how the subject of disclosure
will develop.
In this
connection it is interesting to note the decision of the Central Information Commission
in Arun Varma v. D.G. of IT
(Systems) of 3.3.2006. The appellant had
asked certain details of PAN & TAN of 26 companies. Commission ruled that it is exempt under the
RTI Act but it also noted in the decision:
Information
relating to PAN and TAN including the dates of issue of these numbers are
composite and confidential in nature u/s.138 of Income-tax Act.
Section 23 bars
the jurisdiction of courts: No court is
to entertain any suit, application or other proceeding in respect of any order
made under the RTI Act and no such order shall be called in question otherwise
than by way of an appeal under the RTI Act.
Thus, the order of CIC becomes final in any matter. One can only go for writ and challenge it , if one so desires.
Other
News:
¨
It is not only non-government organisations and human rights activists who are using the
Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, to avail information from the
government. The Federation of Gujarat
Industries (FGI) has requested the Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam (GUVNL) to submit
information regarding the recent bids invited for long-term purchase of power.
The FGI has
requested GUVNL to provide a list of bidders, dates of opening and outcomes,
details of re-invitations and negotiations, copies of letters of intent and
agreements. FGI has also sought the
board agenda prepared and submitted to the board of directors and the
recommendations given by them with regards to the power purchase.
¨
Now, instead of
writing an application for seeking information under the RTI Act and submitting
it to concerned departments, all one has to do is dial a number where an
attendant processes the request and sends an application to the concerned
official. A duplicate copy is forwarded to the district magistrate through
email followed by a fax message. A copy of the application will be delivered at
the caller’s address within three days.
Plus, the caller will be given a special number for follow-up action,
says A. Subhani, Secretary, Personnel,
¨
Based on second appeals and complaints received
by the information commission, which is a fair indicator of the number of Right
to Information Act applications filed, the panel has come to the conclusion
that
According to the
statistics provided by the commission, the Maharashtra
Information Commission has received 6,641 second appeals and complaints till
December last year, while the other states commissions received less than 2,000
second appeals and complaints in the same period. The Central Information
Commission, which is a second appellate authority for all central government
bodies in the country, has received 4,939 second appeals and complaints which
is less than that of
¨
It must be the army man in him. At 74, major-general (retd)
SCN Jatar is busy battling corruption in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). Even before the Right to Information Act
became the common man’s weapon, he used the Maharashtra
RTI Act in 2003 to expose the misuse of official cars by the elected
representatives at the Pune Municipal Corporation.
“Getting information is a very
small part of the RTI Act. The real
issue is, after procuring the information, what?” says the sprightly Jatar, who is also the president of the non-government organisation Nagrik Chetna Manch in Pune.
“The politicians and administrators know that most of the issues will make news for
a few days and then forgotten. That is
why it is important to go after them to ensure better governance in the
future”.
Jatar fired the first salvo in October 2003. He got the details of the logbook entries of
the trips made in official cars by the mayor, deputy mayor, standing committee
chairman, and leader of the opposition. Jatar then revealed to the city that Rs.51 lakh was spent in 10 months on these travels.
“The bill
indicated that either too many outstation trips were being made or that 400 km
were being clocked each day within city limits,” says Jatar
recalling his first findings. So he went
ahead and procured details about the outstation trips made by the
officials. It showed that officials made
trips to every religious and tourist place in
Jatar took the findings to municipal commissioner TC
Benjamin, who issued a circular that if any government official or corporator used official vehicles for personal purposes he
or she would be charged at double the rate.
This move fetched the PMC Rs.49 lakh in two
years.
¨
Much to the embarrassment of judges, the Supreme
Court bar association is set to vote on a resolution stating that the judiciary
should not be exempted from the purview of the Right to Information Act.
Over 150 lawyers
requisitioned the bar association to convene a general body meeting (GBM) to
pass the resolution, which runs counter to the efforts being made by the supreme court to dilute the application
of RTI upon itself. Since such a large
number of lawyers signed the requisition, bar association president M N Krishnamani told Times of India that he was bound by it
regardless of the judges’ feelings and therefore, he was planning to hold a GBM
over the RTI resolution in the first half of February.
Debunking the supreme
court’s claim that RTI could compromise the independence of the judiciary, Krishnamani made no secret of the fact that he was in favour of the proposed resolution. The provocation for a possible confrontation
between the bar and the bench is the supreme court’s
first annual return filed under Section 25 of the Act suggesting two
controversial reforms:
·
It sought exemption from the Act for any
information which, in the opinion of the Chief Justice of India or his nominee,
may adversely affect or interfere or tend to interfere with the independence of
the judiciary or administration of justice.
·
It proposed an amendment exempting the CJI’s decisions on RTI applications from being subjected to
appeal before the Central Information Commission (CIC)
(From
Times of