Information about the income and perks of appellant’s husband were denied claiming that Aeronautical Development Agency is a part of DRDO which is an exempt organisation u/s 24(1) of the RTI Act - CIC upheld the denial of information
8 Oct, 2018Information sought:
The Appellant sought information regarding income of her husband Group Captain SK Anand through 7 points in terms of details of his salary, Form 16, Perks he was entitled to, accommodation provided to him, dependents and nominees/beneficiaries and information with regard to claim for children’s education allowance.
Grounds for the Second Appeal:
The CPIO has not provided the desired information. Relevant Facts emerging during
Hearing:
The following were present:-
Appellant: Present on phone.
Respondent: Ms. Lochana Krishnamurthy, Chief Administrative Officer & CPIO, Aeronautical Development agency, Bangalore present through VC.
Appellant stated that she is not satisfied with the reply of the CPIO as various decisions of a coordinate bench of the Commission has allowed disclosure of information of this nature to spouses. Even further she stated that remuneration of government employees is a part of suo motu disclosure under RTI Act and therefore cannot be denied. CPIO submitted that Aeronautical Development Agency is a part of DRDO and DRDO is an exempt organisation under Section 24(1) Nothing contained in this Act shall apply to the intelligence and security organisations specified in the Second Schedule, being organisations established by the Central Government or any information furnished by such organisations to that Government: Provided that the information pertaining to the allegations of corruption and human rights violations shall not be excluded under this sub-section: of the RTI Act. She further submitted that even previously Air HQs had transferred a RTI Application to their office where information for the same period was sought and similar reply was provided to the Appellant in that case also. She furthermore submitted that the third party under reference was on deputation to ADA from 26.05.2014 to 25.05.2016 and information sought pertains to this period only which cannot be provided as per the provisions of Section 24 of RTI Act.
Decision
DRDO has been placed in Second Schedule of the RTI Act vide notification No. GSR 347 dated 28/09/2005 by Central Government in exercise of the power conferred by Sub-Section 2 of Section 24 of the RTI Act. In view of this, nothing contained in this Act shall apply to the DRDO except for cases where human rights violation and/or corruption are alleged. In the instant case, no case of human rights violation or corruption has been made out by the Appellant. In view of this, Commission upholds the submission of the CPIO. No further action lies.
The appeal is disposed of accordingly.
Divya Prakash Sinha
Information Commissioner
Citation: Shikha Anand v. Aeronautical Development Agency, Ministry of defence in File No. : CIC/AERDA/A/2017/603903/SD, Date of Decision: 13/08/2018