CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
.....
F.No.CIC/AT/A/2009/000130
Dated, the 29th May, 2009.
Appellant : M/s.Gupta Garments
Respondents : Customs Department
This matter came up for hearing on 28.05.2009 pursuant to
Commission’s notice dated 25.04.2009. Appellant was absent when
called, while the respondents were present through Shri S.Kannan,
Additional Commissioner of Customs.
2. Appellant’s RTI-application dated 10.11.2008 and as further
explained in his second-appeal petition was in regard to the status of
the Drawback Incentive Receipts sanctioned by the Ministry of Finance
through Customs authorities for the appellant’s Export Shipping Bill
Nos.3548672 and 3548673 dated 31.12.2007. As stated by the appellant
himself, “our authorized customs house agent filed relevant documents
on our behalf before Chennai Airport Customs authorities to rectify the
EGM error in Customs EDI system. The same was not rectified by the
concerned authorities and we have not received when the same will be
rectified.”
3. Respondents have rightly informed appellant that the queries
such as this do not qualify to be requests for information within the
meaning of Section 2(f) of the RTI Act as these amounted to demanding
from the respondents their explanation about matters projected in the
applicant’s RTI-applications. Such queries cannot be made under the
RTI Act.
4. CPIO during the hearing drew the Commission’s attention to the
utter frivolity of this RTI-petition and the second-appeal. He stated
that as stated by the appellant, certain EGM error did occur in the EDI
system which affected the system all over the country. The matter was
explained to the appellant personally on several occasions. In spite of
knowing this, he went ahead and filed the second-appeal knowing full
well that efforts were on to rectify the error ⎯ which was actually
rectified on 17.01.2009. CPIO urged that such appeals imposed
unnecessary cost on the respondents in terms of their time and
expense, while the appellant conveniently files the petition and forgets
AT-29052009-23.doc
Page 1 of 2
all about it. CPIO urged that such petitioners must be disciplined
through certain provisions in the Act and the Rules.
5. CPIO’s concerns have been noted. It is quite obvious that this is a
non-serious petition filed by a person who perhaps delighted himself at
the sight of the officers of the public authority rushing to file replies to
his second-appeal and appearing before the Commission for its hearings.
6. I would like to believe that a certain responsibility needs to be
cast on the applicants / appellants such as this to be serious about what
they are doing. This is an area of the RTI-legislation which calls for
legislative intervention, which I hope will come in due course.
7. In view of the above, this appeal cannot be sustained. Closed.
8. Copy of this direction be sent to the parties.
( A.N. TIWARI )
INFORMATION COMMISSIONER
AT-29052009-23.doc
Page 2 of 2