Central Information Commission
File No.CIC/SM/A/2009/001112 dated 25022009
Right to Information Act2005Under Section (19)
Dated: 20 May 2010
Name of the Appellant : Shri Varinder Thakur
H.No.18/B,
New Janakpuri,
Ambala Cantt - 133 001.
Name of the Public Authority : CPIO, Oriental Bank of Commerce,
Regional Office,
BXV136, Jandu Tower,
Miller Ganj, G T Road,
Ludhiana.
The Appellant was present in person.
On behalf of the Respondent, the following were present:
(i) Shri M.K. Prasad, AGM (Law),
(ii) Shri Anil Sood, CM (Law),
(iii) Shri Y.V. Gupta, CPIO
2. In this case, the Appellant had, by the letter dated 25 February 2009,
requested the CPIO for some information about whether some particular
cheques had been debited from the account of the account of a third party or
not. In his reply dated 29 March 2009, the CPIO rejected the Appellant’s
application on the ground that the requested information was exempted from
disclosure under the Section 8 (1) (d) of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The
CPIO’s response came much after the prescribed time limit (as mentioned in
the RTI Act) and in the meanwhile, the Appellant preferred an appeal by the
CIC/SM/A/2009/001112
letter dated 29 March 2009. In his order dated 24 April 2009, the Appellate
Authority informed the Appellant that his RTI application had already been
replied by the CPIO. The Appellate Authority also observed that the information
requested was available to the bank in its fiduciary relationship with the
customer and thus could not be provided to the Appellant as per the Sections 8
(1) (d) and (e) of the RTI Act. It is against this order that the Appellant has come
to the CIC in a second appeal.
3. We heard this case through videoconferencing. The Appellant was
present in the Ambala studio of the NIC. The Respondents were present both in
our chamber as well as in the Ludhiana studio. We heard their submissions.
The Appellant submitted that the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Dev) had
issued three cheques in his favour and he had deposited those cheques in the
SBI. It appears the SBI had sent those cheques to the OBC branch for
clearance and even after the lapse of nearly 2 years he had not got any
intimation about the fate of those cheques. He submitted that the SBI had
informed him that they had not heard anything from the OBC on this till now.
The Respondents submitted that the Appellant had not provided any such detail
in his application and that he only wanted to know if the account of one of their
customers, namely, the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Dev) had been
debited against the three cheques he had listed in his application. In the
absence of any other details, they could not have provided the desired
information which was squarely about one of their customers.
4. After carefully examining the above submissions, we advise the
Appellant to forward a copy of the reply he had received from the SBI in regard
to these three cheques to the respective OBC branch and we direct the branch
CIC/SM/A/2009/001112
manager/PIO to provide the desired information regarding those three cheques
within 10 days of receiving from the Appellant a copy of the reply of the SBI.
5. With the above direction, the appeal is disposed off.
6. Copies of this order be given free of cost to the parties.
(Satyananda Mishra)
Information Commissioner
Authenticated true copy. Additional copies of orders shall be supplied
against application and payment of the charges prescribed under the Act to the
CPIO of this Commission.
(Vijay Bhalla)
Assistant Registrar
CIC/SM/A/2009/001112
