Can RTI application be filed on the letterhead of an organisation?
16 Jun, 2013Background
The appellant filed four applications under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, two with the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) and two with the Ashoka Hotel, seeking information about the recruitment of staff and other staff related matters. The Public Information Officer (PIO), ITDC refused to entertain one of the applications stating that it has been written on the letterhead of an NGO and was hence not from an individual citizen but from an office bearer of the NGO. The PIO, Ashoka Hotel provided some information against one of the queries of the same application. For the remaining three RTI applications, both the PIOs provided very little information.
View of CIC
The Central Information Commission (CIC) observed that as per section 6(2) of the RTI Act, a citizen is not required to provide any more details other than his name and address so that he can be contacted. If the RTI application contains the name of information seeker and his postal address, the PIO should not ask any more detail and proceed to provide the available information. The CIC held that it is wrong to treat the office bearer of an association or an NGO as if he is not an Indian citizen. The Commission directed the PIOs of both the organisations to provide the information to the appellant except for the information regarding the enquiry conducted by the management against an employee on the complaint of some hotel guest. The Commission referred to a Supreme Court judgment (Girish Deshpande v. CIC; Link - http://www.rtifoundationofindia.com/dopt/SCDecision.pdf) wherein it was held that the enquiry into complaint against an employee and the consequent disciplinary action is in the nature of personal information which is not liable for disclosure.
Citation: Mr. Sanjay Sharma v. India Tourism Development Corporation in File No. CIC/SM/A/2013/000021, 22, 265 & 266
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2013/CIC/1368
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