CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
Club Building, Old JNU Campus,
Opposite Ber Sarai,
New Delhi - 110066
Tel: +91 11 26161796
Decision No. CIC/SG/A/2009/000401/3062
Appeal No. CIC/SG/A/2009/000401
Relevant facts emerging from the Appeal:
Appellant : Mr. R.C. Jain,
R/o WZ-596, V.P.O.
Palam, New Delhi-110045.
Respondent : PIO,
Delhi Jal Board,
Office of the Secretary, RTI Cell,
Varunalaya Phase-II, Karol Bagh,
New Delhi.
RTI application filed on : 28/08/2008 PIO replied : 01/10/2008 First Appeal filed on : 05/10/2008 First Appellate Authority order : not replied Second Appeal filed on : 02/02/2009
The appellant had asked in RTI application for inspection of the files of Sh.
Prem Chand Jain R/o WZ-603 A, Palam Village who is having two water
connection with DJB. Also please allow me to have same documents (Photocopies
thereof).
Please also advise the basis on which the above connection have been
permitted by DJB to him. i.e. the property documents related to it, when the
connection was allowed originally.
The PIO replied.
Desired information relates to 3rd party. A notice was served by Z.R.O.
(SW)-I to Sh. Prem Chand Jain to give NOC for giving / sharing the information
under RTI.
Shri Prem Chand Jain has objected to give information to any other person.
Hence desired information cannot be provided.
First Appellate Authority Ordered:
Not replied.
Relevant facts emerging during hearing on 28 April 2009:
The following were present.
Appellant: Mr. R.C. Jain
Respondent: Dr. Bipin Bihari on behalf of Mr. Santosh D. Vaidya PIO
Third party : Mr. Narinder Kumar Jain son of Mr. P.C. Jain
The third party states that the appellant is asking personal information about them
from various Government organizations and this is misuse of RTI. The appellant
also has Court cases and wants to use the information in the Court cases. The Third
party objects to giving the information since it would be an intrusion on his privacy,
and hence the information is exempt under Section 8 (1) (j). The third party also
states that the appellant is seeking a lot of information about him under RTI.
The respondent states that the deemed PIO sought the NOC from the third party who
objected to giving the information on the grounds that it was an invasion of his
privacy.
The order is reserved during Hearing
Order pronounced on 4 May 2009:
Section 11 of the RTI act, which is the basis on which the information is sought to
denied to the appellant in the present case lays down:
’11. (1) Where a Central Public Information Officer or the State Public
Information Officer, as the case may be, intends to disclose any
information or record, or part thereof on a request made under this
Act, which. relates to or has been supplied by a third party and has
been treated as confidential by that third party, the Central Public
Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case
may be, shall, within five days from the receipt of the request, give a
written notice to such third party of the request and of the fact that
the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information
Officer, as the case may be, intends to disclose the information or
record, or part thereof, and invite the third party to make a
submission in writing or orally, regarding whether the information
should be disclosed, and such submission of the third party shall be
kept in view while taking a decision about disclosure of information:
Provided that except in the case of trade or commercial
secrets protected by law, disclosure may be allowed if the public
interest in disclosure out weighs in importance any possible harm or
injury to the interests of such third party.
(2) Where a notice is served by the Central Public Information Officer or
State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, under sub-
section (1) to a third party in respect of any information or record or
part thereof, the third party shall, within ten days from the date of
receipt of such notice, be given the opportunity to make
representation against the proposed disclosure.
(3) Notwithstanding anything contained in section 7, the Central Public
Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case
may be, shall, within forty days after receipt of the request under
section 6, if the third party has been given an opportunity to make
representation under sub-section (2), make a decision as to whether
or not to disclose the information or record or part thereof and give
in writing the notice of his decision to the third party.
(4) A notice given under sub-section (3) shall include a statement that
the third party to whom the notice is given is entitled to prefer an
appeal under section 19 against the decision.’
It is clearly stated at Section 11 (1) that ‘submission of third party shall be kept in
view while taking a decision about disclosure of information. Section 11 does not
give a third party an unrestrained veto to refuse disclosing information. It only gives
the third party an opportunity to voice its objections to disclosing information. The
PIO will keep these in mind and denial of information can only be on the basis of
exemption under Section 8 (1) of the RTI act.
The Commission will first deal with the contentions of the third party:
1. Disclosing it would be an intrusion on his privacy.
The third party is invoking the protection of Section 8 (1) (j) of the RTI act.
Under Section 8 (1) (j) information which has been exempted is defined as:
“information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no
relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted
invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information
Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case
may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such
information:”
To qualify for this exemption the information must satisfy the following criteria:
1. It must be personal information.
Words in a law should normally be given the meanings given in common language.
In common language we would ascribe the adjective ‘personal’ to an attribute which
applies to an individual and not to an Institution or a Corporate. From this it flows
that ‘personal’ cannot be related to Institutions, organizations or corporates. ( Hence
we could state that Section 8 (1) (j) cannot be applied when the information
concerns institutions, organizations or corporates.).
The phrase ‘disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest’
must be interpreted means that the information must have some relationship to a
Public activity.
Various Public authorities in performing their functions routinely ask for ‘personal’
information from Citizens, and this is clearly a public activity. When a person
applies for a job, or gives information about himself to a Public authority as an
employee, or asks for a permission, license or authorization, all these are public
activities.
We can also look at this from another aspect. The State has no right to invade the
privacy of an individual. There are some extraordinary situations where the State
may be allowed to invade on the privacy of a Citizen. In those circumstances special
provisos of the law apply, always with certain safeguards. Therefore it can be argued
that where the State routinely obtains information from Citizens, this information is
in relationship to a public activity and will not be an intrusion on privacy.
Certain human rights such as liberty, freedom of expression or right to life are
universal and therefore would apply uniformly in all Countries uniformly. However,
the concept of ‘privacy’ is related to the society and different societies’ would look at
these differently. India has not codified this right so far, hence in balancing the Right
to Information of Citizens and the individual’s Right to Privacy the Citizen’s Right to
Information would be given greater weightage.
Therefore we can accept that disclosure of information which is routinely
collected by the Public authority and routinely provided by individuals, would not
be an invasion on the privacy of an individual and there will only be a few
exceptions to this rule which might relate to information which is obtained by a
Public authority while using extraordinary powers such as in the case of a raid or
phone-tapping.
2. Third party has the right to refuse to divulge with information relating to
him, and unless a large Public interest can be established, the information
will not be disclosed.
No legal provision has been cited.
3. The third parties’ contention that there are Court cases with appellant is not
relevant to the appellant’s demand for information.
Under this Act, providing information is the rule and denial an exception.
Any attempt to constrict or deny information to the Sovereign Citizen of India
without the explicit sanction of the law will be going against the rule of law. The
Citizen needs to give no reasons nor are his credentials to be checked for giving the
information. If the third party objects to giving the information, the Public
Information Officer must take his objections and see if any of the exemption clauses
of Section 8 (1) apply. If the any of the exemption clauses apply, the PIO is then
obliged to see if there is a larger Public interest in disclosure. If none of the
exemption clauses apply, information has to be given.
The third party’s objections made before the Commission about the
exemptions of Section 8 (1) (j) are disallowed. Hence the information would have to
be given.
Decision:
The Appeal is allowed.
The PIO will give the information to the appellant before 15 May 2009.
Notice of this decision be given free of cost to the parties.
Shailesh Gandhi
Information Commissioner
4 May 2009
(In any case correspondence on this decision, mention the complete decision number.)