{"id":109706,"date":"2008-10-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-19T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.legalindia.com\/judgments\/shri-s-p-goyal-vs-customs-department-on-20-october-2008"},"modified":"2018-07-26T17:31:22","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T12:01:22","slug":"shri-s-p-goyal-vs-customs-department-on-20-october-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.legalindia.com\/judgments\/shri-s-p-goyal-vs-customs-department-on-20-october-2008","title":{"rendered":"Shri S.P. Goyal vs Customs Department on 20 October, 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"docsource_main\">Central Information Commission<\/div>\n<div class=\"doc_title\">Shri S.P. Goyal vs Customs Department on 20 October, 2008<\/div>\n<pre>                CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION\n                              .....\n<\/pre>\n<p>                                      F.No.CIC\/AT\/C\/2008\/00048<br \/>\n                                     Dated, the 20th October, 2008.\n<\/p>\n<p> Complainant : Shri S.P. Goyal<\/p>\n<p> Respondents : Customs Department<\/p>\n<p>      This complaint by Shri S.P. Goyal was heard through videoconferencing<br \/>\non 13.10.2008. Complainant was present at the NIC Studio at Mumbai while the<br \/>\nrespondents (Shri N.S. Ramachandran, Deputy Commissioner) were present at<br \/>\nNIC Studio at Kochi. Commission conducted the hearing through<br \/>\nvideoconferencing from the CIC Office at New Delhi.\n<\/p>\n<p>2.     Briefly stated the fact in this case is that complainant filed his RTI-request<br \/>\nbefore the CPIO, Custom House Cochin on 07.11.2007. CPIO through an<br \/>\ninterim reply dated 15.11.2007 requested complainant to send the application fee<br \/>\nunder Section 6(1) read with Rule 3 through bank draft or to deposit it in cash.<br \/>\nComplainant had enclosed a Postal Order No.59E 511185 dated 25.10.2007 for<br \/>\nRs.10 and Postal Order No.29G 515987 dated 07.11.2007 for Rs.50 along with<br \/>\nhis RTI-application. CPIO also sent a reminder to the complainant,<br \/>\nShri S.P. Goyal on 31.12.2007. Complainant filed his complaint under Section<br \/>\n18 before the CIC on 14.01.2008. The requested information was despatched to<br \/>\nShri Goyal by the CPIO through a communication dated 15.01.2008.\n<\/p>\n<p>3.   The short-point for decision in this matter is whether the demand of fee<br \/>\npayment through Bank Draft or cash by the respondents was in order.\n<\/p>\n<p>4.     The respondents have accepted their error and pleaded that the word<br \/>\npostal order was inserted into the Section 6(1) read with Rule 3 of the RTI Act<br \/>\nthrough an amendment on 17.05.2006. This fact was unknown to the<br \/>\nrespondents. That is the reason why they first demanded from the complainant to<br \/>\npay the fee through Bank Draft or in cash rather than through postal order which<br \/>\nthe complainant had done. As it was clearly an error based upon a certain<br \/>\nignorance about the amendment which brought in postal order alongside Bank<br \/>\nDraft and cash as mode of fee payment. Respondents deeply regretted their<br \/>\nerror, but pointed out that their bona-fides were established by the fact that not<br \/>\nonly they promptly informed Shri Goyal, albeit wrongly, to make fee-payment<br \/>\nthrough Bank draft or cash, they also sent him a reminder. When Shri Goyal<br \/>\nfiled his complaint under Section 18 of the RTI Act before the Commission, the<br \/>\nCPIO re-examined the whole matter and on being informed that postal order was<br \/>\nan accepted mode of fee payment, promptly despatched information on<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"hidden_text\">                                                                          Page 1 of 2<\/span><br \/>\n 15.01.2008 to Shri Goyal. CPIO urged that his actions were fully covered by the<br \/>\nreasonable cause provisions of the Section 20(1) of the RTI Act.\n<\/p>\n<p>5.      I notice that the CPIO&#8217;s actions, though erroneous, were on account of<br \/>\ncertain ignorance about the amendment which had brought in postal order as the<br \/>\nmode of fee payment for RTI-applications. There was no denial of information<br \/>\nto Shri Goyal due to mala-fide intention on the part of the CPIO. CPIO&#8217;s<br \/>\nbona-fides are further established by the fact that following his communication<br \/>\ndated 15.11.2007 for fee payment through postal order or in cash, he also went<br \/>\nahead to send a reminder to Shri Goyal. Had the complainant remonstrated with<br \/>\nCPIO (that postal order was an accepted mode of fee payment), it would have<br \/>\nbeen possible for the CPIO to re-examine the matter and come to a conclusion<br \/>\nfavourable to the complainant, which he eventually did, after some delay, when<br \/>\ncomplainant came before the Commission against the CPIO. I, therefore, hold<br \/>\nthat there was no mala-fide denial of information to the complainant by the CPIO<br \/>\nand that his action was free from any malice or deliberate attempt to withhold<br \/>\ninformation and, therefore, qualified to be covered by the reasonable cause<br \/>\nprovisions of Section 20(1) of the RTI Act.\n<\/p>\n<p>6.    Complaint closed.\n<\/p>\n<p>7.    Copy of this decision be sent to the parties.\n<\/p>\n<p>                                                          ( A.N. TIWARI )<br \/>\n                                             INFORMATION COMMISSIONER<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"hidden_text\">                                                                     Page 2 of 2<\/span>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Central Information Commission Shri S.P. Goyal vs Customs Department on 20 October, 2008 CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION &#8230;.. F.No.CIC\/AT\/C\/2008\/00048 Dated, the 20th October, 2008. Complainant : Shri S.P. Goyal Respondents : Customs Department This complaint by Shri S.P. Goyal was heard through videoconferencing on 13.10.2008. Complainant was present at the NIC Studio at Mumbai while the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-central-information-commission","category-judgements"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Shri S.P. 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