ENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
Club Building (Near Post Office)
Old JNU Campus, New Delhi - 110067
Tel: +91-11-26161796
Decision No. CIC/SM/A/2011/000247/SG/12643
Appeal No. CIC/SM/A/2011/000247/SG
Relevant Facts
emerging from the Appeal:
Appellant: : Mr. Saroj Kumar Mishra
Door No. 80-17-18/I, 1st Floor,
J.N.Road, Rajahmundry,
Andhra Pradesh-533 103. .
Respondent: : Ms. Jyoti Mehta,
Director (Vigilance) & P1O
Central Vigilance Commission,
Satarkta Bhavan, GPO Complex,
Block-A, INA, New Delhi-Il 00 23.
RTI application: 13/05/2010
PIO reply: 28/05/2010
First appeal 08/06/2010
FAA order 09/07/2010
Second appeal 13/10/2010
Information sought:
A. Please provide all reports including recommendation enclosed in letter no. V/04/205/599 dated 27.1 0-
09 from CVO-NALCO to CVC pointing out some faulty systems related to procedure followed by
NALCO in DPCs leading to issue of Office Memorandum from Director(Vigilance), CVC on 09/11/09.
B. Whether Ministry of Mines has submitted its comments as requested by Director(Vigilance), CVC to
CVO, Ministry of Mines on the above matter. If yes, please provide a copy of the same.
PIO’s reply:
Please refer to your RTI application dated 13/05/2010, on the subject cited above.
A. In this connection, It is intimated that the case is yet to be finalized and hence your request for supply
of copies of documents is denied in terms of Section 8(1)(h) of RTI Act since disclosure of the
information at this stage would impede the process of the enquiry.
B-NO
Grounds for First appeal:
Based on CVO, NALCO’s report dated 27-10-09, CVC has issued instruction on 09- 11-09 to Ministry of
Mines for its comments within a month. What does it mean? The urgency of the matter is evident. How
can CVC take a U-turn to say that the enquiry is continuing when Ministry of Mines is yet to respond ?
Has CVC taken back its instruction to Ministry of Mines 7 Applicant is seeking only the reports submitted
by CVO-Nalco on which CVC has already acted and no other part. This is the fact; no reasoning can alter
it.
Besides, CPIO has totally failed to establish/prove how the disclosure is going to
impede the process of enquiry. Which agency is conducting enquiry now? It may kindly be noted that
applicant is not seeking the documents from which CVO,NALCO gave the report. Then how the
disclosure of report submitted by CVO, Nalco is going to impede the so-called-enquiry? How can the
applicant impede the process of the enquiry if this report is made available to him? Is it feasible? It may
Page 1 of 3
kindly be noted that sharing the reports of CVO-Nalco can never tie the hands of Ministry of Mines or
CVC or any other Authority for that matter in deciding their course of action as they please. Therefore,
CPIO’s denial inherently sufferers from this fundamental flaw and is hit by section 7(8)(i) of RTI Act.
When Ministry of Mines has not responded to CVC’s Office Memorandum even after 6 months and
thereafter when CVC is not revealing the information under its custody, it smacks of some unholy
alliance. The moral decadence of constitutional instrumentalities must not be permitted to go unopposed.
The preambular goal of RTI Act to ensure transparency & accountability has been de facto liquidated by
CPIO ‘s above decision.
FAA order:
4. I have gone through the relevant records and find that this Commission, vide its Office Memorandum
dated 10.12.2009 has called for the comments/action taken (on the report sent by Chief Vigilance Officer
(CVO’). NALCO, vide his letter V/04/205/599 dated 27.10.2009) from CVO, NALCO. Ministry of
Mines, which are still awaited. Hence, it is clear that the authorities concerned have not yet taken a final
view in the matter and the case has not reached its logical conclusion. The Appellant may ‘note’ that the
cases where the authority concerned have not yet taken a final view in the matter, that is, the cases have
still not reached their logical conclusion, are to be considered ‘under investigation’, as upheld by Central
In formation Commission (CIC) in the case of Shri Shankar Sharma and other Vs Income Tax Department
in ease No. CJC/AT/A/2007/00007/I0/11 where CIC stated that “investigation would mean all actions of
law enforcement, disciplinary proceedings. enquiries, adjudications and so on. Logically, no investigation
could be said to be complete unless it has reached a point where the final decision on the basis of that
investigation is taken”. In such cases, where the investigation is not complete, that is, the cases have not
been taken to its logical conclusion, the disclosure of information/documents is exempt under Section 8(1)
(h) of the RTI Act, as upheld by the CIC in case No. CIC/AT/2008/01500 in the case of Shri N. Saini vs.
LIC of India in which CIC stated that “there is also public interest in keeping the proceedings of an
enquiry against the public servant confidential as any premature disclosure of the contents of such enquiry
can compromise its objectivity as well as integrity. In fact, confidentiality is a key element of the
enquiry.” I, therefore, uphold the decision of the CPIO.
Grounds for Second appeal:
Appellant has sought all reports submitted by CVO, NALCO to CVC, New Delhi after CVC sought
response of Ministry of Mines. Some of the said reports dealt with faulty system related to procedure
adopted by NALCO in DPCs.
All reports were sought since PIO initially avoided to provide information by taking a plea (response to
previous RTI application at page-I 3). When that was made clear in a separate application (present case),
she denied the information u/s 8(1)(h) of RTI Act. AA upheld the decision of PIO and hence this appeal.
No case made out how the investigation would be impeded. It is already 6 months when Ministry of
Mines had not responded to CVC’s instruction to respond within 1 month as is revealed from PIO’s
response to query — B (page-6).
Relevant Facts emerging during Hearing:
The following were present
Appellant : Absent;
Respondent : Mr. Keshav Rao, Director on behalf of Ms. Jyoti Mehta, Director (Vigilance) & P1O;
The respondent states that the investigation was stated in February 2010 and it is not yet over. The
respondent admits that as per norms investigations should be finished within 03 months. He states that
information has been denied on the basis of Section 8(1)(h) of the RTI Act since the investigation is not
over. The Commission asked the respondent if he could establish how the process of investigation would
be impeded by disclosing the information. He states if information is disclosed at this stage it could be
used to file Court cases. If a citizen files a court case this cannot be considered impeding the process of
investigation.
Page 2 of 3
The Respondent has not been able to establish that disclosing the information would impede the process
of investigation. The Respondent has admitted that it has been over 15 months since the investigation has
been going on. Section 8(1)(h) of the RTI Act exempts disclosure of “information which would impede
the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders”.
Justice Ravindra Bhat has held in Bhagatsingh vs. CIC WP (c ) no. 3114/2007-
“13. Access to information, under Section 3 of the Act, is the rule and exemptions under Section 8, the
exception. Section 8 being a restriction on this fundamental right, must therefore is to be strictly
construed. It should not be interpreted in manner as to shadow the very right itself. Under Section 8,
exemption from releasing information is granted if it would impede the process of investigation or the
prosecution of the offenders. It is apparent that the mere existence of an investigation process cannot be a
ground for refusal of the information; the authority withholding information must show satisfactory
reasons as to why the release of such information would hamper the investigation process. Such reasons
should be germane, and the opinion of the process being hampered should be reasonable and based on
some material. Sans this consideration, Section 8(1)(h) and other such provisions would become the haven
for dodging demands for information.
14. A rights based enactment is akin to a welfare measure, like the Act, should receive a liberal
interpretation. The contextual background and history of the Act is such that the exemptions, outlined in
Section 8, relieving the authorities from the obligation to provide information, constitute restrictions on
the exercise of the rights provided by it. Therefore, such exemption provisions have to be construed in
their terms; there is some authority supporting this view ( See Nathi Devi v. Radha Devi Gupta 2005 (2)
SCC 201; B. R. Kapoor v. State of Tamil Nadu 2001 (7) SCC 231 and V. Tulasamma v. Sesha Reddy
1977 (3) SCC 99). Adopting a different approach would result in narrowing the rights and approving a
judicially mandated class of restriction on the rights under the Act, which is unwarranted.”
As per Section 19(5) “In any appeal proceedings, the onus to prove that a denial of a request was
justified shall be on the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the
case may be, who denied the request.”
Denial of a citizen’s fundamental right must be justified and the mere act of continuing an investigation
cannot be used to deny citizens’ rights. Most investigations and investigators in the country appear to take
an enormous amount of time to decide or conclude anything. The Respondent admits that CVC’s
guidelines for completing all investigations is three months. In the instant case, it is admitted that over 15
months have elapsed. If investigating agencies in the country were to diligently enforce the timelines laid
down, they would not have to resort to Section 8(1)(h) to refuse information. In view of this, the
Commission does not accept the denial of information under Section 8(1)(h) of the RTI Act.
Decision:
The Appeal is allowed.
The PIO is directed to provide the information to the Appellant before 20 June 2011.
This decision is announced in open chamber.
Notice of this decision be given free of cost to the parties.
Any information in compliance with this Order will be provided free of cost as per Section 7(6) of RTI Act.
Shailesh Gandhi
Information Commissioner
01 June 2011
(In any correspondence on this decision, mention the complete decision number.) (JK)
Page 3 of 3