Shri Ramesh Babubhai Patel vs Ministry Of Home Affairs (Mha) on 14 January, 2009

                        CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
                          Appeal No.CIC/WB/A/2007/01074 dated 14.11.2007
                             Right to Information Act 2005 - Section 19


Appellant       -          Shri Ramesh Babubhai Patel
Respondent          -      Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)


Facts

:

By an application of 2.4.07 Shri Ramesh Babubhai Patel of Bodakdev,
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, applied to the Dy. Secretary, Freedom Fighters Division,
Ministry of Home Affairs, seeking the following information:

“1. The High Court of Gujarat had ordered on 29.10.2004 to
release the arrears with 9 % interest. What actions taken/
noting made in our above case by various authorities/
officers after above order.

2. After passing an order by Supreme Court of India on
31.3.2006, my father called your office several times and
wrote numerous letters and faxes as referred in Ref. (I) and
(II). Why the arrear was not released before demise of my
father on dated 24.7.2006? Which officers/ authorities are
responsible for this kind of irresponsible treatment to a
freedom fighter?

3. What is written by my father at para no 2 & 3 of (A4) is as
good as dying declaration before his death. We could not
offer better treatment to my father as well as could not fulfill
his last wishes due to financial hardship along with his
nature of self respect being a freedom fighter. We wish to
initiate legal action in the matter. Please furnish us the
names and addresses of the concerned officers involved in
the delay of above matter.

4. What departmental actions have been taken against such
irresponsible officers for such abnormal delay? If no action
has been taken who is responsible authority not to take
action against such irresponsible officers?

5. You have issued intentionally erroneous order on 7.11.2006
after filling of our appeal for the contempt of the High Court
of Gujarat. It is necessary for every citizen of India to
approach for contempt of the court to get his due from GOI?

1

It is the permanent policy of GOI to approach higher courts
without looking to the merits of the case? If not, then why it
is adopted in our case? Which authorities/ officers made
what noting in the matter to drag the case up to Supreme
Court of India?

6. The High Court of Gujarat passed an order dated
29.10.2004 to pay arrears from the date of application, which
in our case is 11.2.1991. Please let us know how you have
decided date of application as 27.9.2005 as mentioned in
your order and which authorities/ officers made what noting
to come to this conclusion?

7. The High Court of Gujarat passed an order dated 3.10.2006
in our civil application for amendment no 10157 of 2006 to
replace my father name with my mother name in the present
case. Please let us know how you have decided to pass an
order in my father’s name on dated 7.11.2006 and which
authorities/ officers made what noting to come to this
conclusion?”

To this he received a reply from Shri V. K. Gupta, Dy. Secretary on 29.5.07
as follows:

“1-4 There has been delay in implementation of order dated
31.3.2006 of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, which has
occurred neither willfully nor due to negligence but due to the
time consuming but unavoidable administrative procedures
which have to be gone through in cases like the present,
where the decision has to be taken collectively. It may not
be out of place to mention here that three separate SLPs
were filed by the Union of India against the judgment dated
14.6.20005 of the Hon’ble High Court of Gujarat, since all
the three cases were clubbed together. The case could be
processed only on 10.7.2006 after receipt of judgment of the
Hon’ble Supreme Court in SLP No. 8735/2006 decided on
8.5.2006 for seeking approval of the competent authority for
sanctioning pension. Approval of the Hon’ble Minister of
State for Home was received in the FFR Division on
14.9.2006. Immediately, thereafter identification documents
were called from concerned freedom fighters vide letters
dated 26.9.2006.

5. As regards the sanction issued on 7.11.2006 granting
pension to late Shri Babubhai Mohanlal Patel, you are
informed that the officers/ staff dealing with the matter were

2
not aware at the material time regarding the Order dated
3.10.2006 passed by the Hon’ble High Court of Gujarat.
Pleas be informed that no officer would like to invite the
wrath of the Hon’ble High Court, by willfully disobeying the
orders of the Hon’ble High Court. You are further informed
that issuance of wrong orders, unnecessarily increases the
workload of staff and officers, who are already overworked
and none of the officer/ staff is willing to indulge in such
tactics.

6. In this regard it may be stated that the application dated
11.2.1991 of your late father Shri Babubhai was not received
in this Ministry. This position was clarified in the Counter
Affidavit filed in the case. Copy of his application was
received on 27.9.2005 through the State Government.”

Shri V. K. Gupta has gone on to advise that Shri Patel’s mother submit an
application for dependent’s family pension in the format thereof prescubed.

Aggrieved by this response appellant Shri Patel has then moved an appeal
to the First Appellate Authority, whose name and designation had not been
mentioned in response to his application, c/o CPIO Shri V. K. Gupta, specifically
on the ground that the response from CPIO had been unduly delayed and that,
“None of the reply is point wise as sought by me through 7 points of my
application. Please provide me specific and detailed information against my
each point.”

In response, however, he received a letter from Shri Manmohan, Under
Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs dated 16.7.07 rejecting his appeal on the
following grounds :

“2. It has been observed that the appellant, in the guise of
seeking information under the RTI Act, has raised questions
regarding the nature and quality of action taken by the CPIO,
the procedure followed by the Ministry and about fixing of
responsibility for delay in handling cases by concerned
officers. It may be pointed out that the responsibility of the
Appellate Authority is to see that if the appellant has not
been given available information by the CPIO, the same is
given to him. The Appellate Authority is not supposed to

3
give replies to the questions raised by the appellant which,
according to the RTI Act, are not covered by the definition of
information. It has further been found that the CPIO has
vide MHA’s letter No. 115/979/04-FF (WZ) dated 29.5.2007
has given available information to the appellant and no
information appears to have been suppressed by him.

3. Attention of the appellant is drawn in this connection to
Central Information Commission’s Order dated 21.4.2006, in
which the Commission, had inter alia, observed as follows:

It is not open to an appellant to ask in the guise of seeking
information, questions to the public authorities about the nature and
quality of their actions. The RTI Act does not cast on the public
authority any obligation to answer queries, as in this case, in which
a petitioner attempts to elicit answers to his questions with prefixes,
such as, why, what, when and whether. The petitioner’s right
extends only to seeking information as defined in section 2 (f) either
by pinpointing the file, document, paper or record, etc., or by
mentioning the type of information as may be available with the
specified public authority…”

4. In view of the above, it has not been found possible to
accept the appeal submitted by the appellant and the same
is rejected.

Appellant’s prayer before us in his second appeal is as below:

“We feel that not only CPIO has provided misleading
information but also suppressed the information. Hence reply
of FAA is correct for this point.

We request you to bring the true and logical end of the
matter.”

The appeal was heard on 14.1.2009. The following are present:

Appellant
Shri Ramesh Babubhai Patel
Respondents
Shri Paul Ekka, Dy. Secretary
Shri Harish Rajpal, Section Officer

On being asked how an Under Secretary, an officer junior to the Dy.

Secretary who in this case was the CPIO, has disposed of an appeal under the

4
RTI Act, Shri Paul Ekka Dy. Secretary has submitted that this was done with the
approval of Jt. Secretary, as mentioned in the response of the Under Secretary
Shri Manmohan dated 16.7.07. While it was clarified that the application had
been received in the Division only on 10.4.07, this still does not explain a delay of
further 19 days before a reply was sent. However, we were told that the then
CPIO Shri V. K. Gupta, Dy. Secretary Gupta has since retired.

Appellant Shri Patel was asked what further information he requires to
which he responded that as laid down in his first appeal he requires an answer
pointwise.

DECISION NOTICE

Sec. 7(9) of the RTI Act reads as follows :

“An information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought
unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public
authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the
record in question.”

In other words, response to an application is to be given in the form it is
asked, digressed upon only on grounds as specified. This is not the process that
has been followed in the present case. Besides the law is clear in that an appeal
can only be preferred “to such officer who is senior in rank to the CPIO or SPIO,
as the case may be, in each public authority” (Sec. 19 sub sec. (1)). Moreover it
is not up to the Appellate Authority to seek the assistance of any other officer for
disposing of an appeal. Under Sec. 5(4) of the Act, this is permissible only to a
PIO. It is open to an Appellate Authority to transfer the matter to another
Appellate Authority if the matter does not pertain to him/her but he cannot allow,
even with his approval, a junior official to rule upon an appeal against the
decision of an officer senior to him.

The order of 16.7.07 of Under Secretary Shri Manmohan of Ministry of
Home Affairs is, therefore, set aside. First Appellate Authority Shri A. K. Goyal,

5
Jt. Secretary (FFR), MHA will now re-examine this matter and provide a
pointwise response to appellant Shri Patel within ten working days of the
date of receipt of this decision notice under intimation to Shri Pankaj KP
Shreyaskar, Joint Registrar in this Commission. The appeal is, therefore,
allowed.

Announced in the hearing. Notice of this decision be given free of cost to
the parties.

(Wajahat Habibullah)
Chief Information Commissioner
14.1.2009

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.

(Pankaj Shreyaskar)
Joint Registrar
14.1.2009

6