Information about a CAT order - Respondent: The information was not available in a compiled form & compiling it would disproportionately divert the resources of the respondent organization - CIC: The documents were wrongly withheld u/s 7(9) of the RTI Act
27 Jan, 2018
O R D E R
1. The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), Prasar Bharti, seeking information on four points including, inter alia,
(i) the date of the implementation of the Order dated 24.09.2008 passed by the Hon’ble Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in the matter of the O.A. No. 1776/ 2008 titled as L.S. Rawat v. Union of India and another by the Central Production Centre (CPC), Doordarshan, New Delhi, and
(ii) the details of the action taken by the CPC, Doordarshan, Delhi in pursuance of the judgment of the Hon’ble Apex Court dated 17.03.2011 in the matter of the W. P. (C) No. 8261/ 2009 titled as Union of India v. L.S. Rawat and another.
2. The appellant filed a second appeal before the Commission on the grounds that he was not satisfied with the reply provided by the CPIO on point nos. 2, 3 and 4 of the RTI application as the information sought was withheld by taking recourse to Section 7 (9) of the RTI Act. Even the First Appellate Authority did not intervene in the reply furnished by the CPIO and upheld the same. The appellant requested the Commission to direct the CPIO to furnish the information sought for by him on point nos. 2, 3 and 4 of the RTI application and to provide a clear copy of the Order dated 16.11.2010 in terms of the reply furnished on point no.1 of the RTI application.
Hearing:
3. The appellant Shri Amit Kumar Srivastava attended the hearing through video- conferencing. The respondent, Shri Moti Lal, Senior Accounts Officer, Prasar Bharti, was present in person.
4. The appellant submitted that he was not satisfied with the reply furnished by the respondent organization, in response to his RTI application, on point nos. 2, 3 and 4 of the RTI application as the information sought was withheld by taking recourse to Section 7 (9) of the RTI Act. The appellant requested the Commission to direct the CPIO to furnish the information sought for by him on point nos. 2, 3 and 4 of the RTI application.
5. The respondent submitted that vide the CPIO’s reply dated 08.08.2016, complete information on point nos. 1 and 5 of the RTI application was furnished to the appellant. The respondent, with respect to point nos. 2, 3 and 4 of the RTI application, submitted that the appellant was informed that the information sought by him was not available in a compiled form and collating it would disproportionately divert the resources of the respondent organization. The appellant was, therefore, advised to inspect the documents/ records pertaining to his RTI application and obtain the copies after paying the prescribed fees. However, the said opportunity was not availed by the appellant. The respondent also stated that the FAA vide its Order dated 27.09.2016 had again offered the opportunity of inspection to the appellant. On a pointed query, the respondent stated that the information is contained in three volumes, having around 100-150 pages each.
Decision:
6. The Commission, after hearing the submissions of both the parties and perusing the records, observes that partial information, in response to the RTI application, has been furnished to the appellant by the respondent. The Commission also notes the respondents’ submissions that the information sought by the appellant was not available in a compiled form and collating and compiling it would have disproportionately diverted the resources of the respondent organization. However, in terms of the respondents’ submissions that the information sought in point nos. 2, 3 and 4 of the RTI application was contained in three files only, the Commission observes that the documents were wrongly withheld under Section 7 (9) of the RTI Act. In view of this, the Commission directs the respondent to provide the records/documents pertaining to the information sought by the appellant in point nos. 2, 3 and 4 of the RTI application, after severing any information which is not disclosable under the RTI Act, free of cost, within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this Order.
7. With the above observations, the appeal is disposed of.
8. Copy of the decision be provided free of cost to the parties.
(Sudhir Bhargava)
Information Commissioner
Citation: Shri Amit Kumar Srivastava v. Prasar Bharti in Decision No. CIC/DGDOR/A/2017/312648, dated 11.10.2017