The appellant withdraws paragraph from the RTI application containing objectionable language
19 Jun, 2013Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Department of Financial Services (DoFS) seeking details in respect of appointment and transfer of several officers and other details of Transport allowance claim etc. The Public Information Officer (PIO) provided partial information to the appellant.
Proceedings
During the hearing, the Central Information Commission (CIC) noted that the applicant has in point of his RTI application used extremely objectionable and unparliamentarily language while referring to the officers of the public authority. The appellant was informed that such an application would not be heard by the Commission and nowhere in the RTI Act has the information seeker been given the right to use such offensive language while exercising his rights under the RTI Act. The Commission placed on record that the appellant has withdrawn in writing, a particular paragraph containing objectionable material after accepting that he has used inappropriate language in that paragraph of his RTI application.
View of CIC
The Commission directed the PIO to provide information as sought by the appellant. The appellant was informed that the disclosure of immovable property returns of officers employed in public authorities falls squarely under the exemption section 8(1)(j) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person. of the Act and the same was denied. The CIC directed the PIO to verify whether any letter was written to vigilance section of DEA by the DFS regarding the appellant and if any such letter is held on record, the same would be provided to the appellant.
During the hearing, the Commission had to warn the appellant on several occasions to maintain appropriate decorum. He was directed to be more careful in his conduct in future while appearing before the Commission.
Citation: Mr. Prabhu Putra Ravi v. Department of Financial Services in Appeal: No. CIC/DS/A/2012/001928
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2013/CIC/1378
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission