Information regarding complaint filed by appellant’s wife was sought - CIC rejected the appeal; copy of order to be before the Judge for appropriate action against the appellant regarding harassment of court staff with frivolous applications under RTI
28 Feb, 2016FACTS:
2. Appellant through his RTI application sought information with respect to complaint filed by his wife Mrs. Chitra Gupta under section 12 of Domestic Violence Act. CPIO gave a detailed reply. Being unsatisfied with the CPIO reply appellant made first appeal. On not receiving any order from the FAA, the appellant made second appeal before the Commission.
Proceedings Before the Commission:
3. Both parties made their submissions.
4. The PIO, Saket Court Complex submitted written submissions which state that they had furnished to the appellant, Mr. Vijay Parkash Gupta the requisite information, i.e. status of his cases pending the court of Ms. Jyoti Kler, Ld.MM Mahila Court. It is further submitted that the applicant had also sought the certificates of some orders/documents for which he was asked to apply in the Copying Agency of the Saket Court. In this connection, they quoted the decision of the CIC No.CIC/AD/A/2012/001879 dated 15-10-2012 wherein it was decided that the reply of PIO asking the appellant to obtain copies of desired documents through the existing procedure/rule of the court, is in conformity with the provision of law. The PIO also submitted that the appellant filed first appeal before the FAA but never appeared for hearing, instead he sent a letter stating that he had already filed second appeal before the CIC.
5. The Commission was told that this appellant has filed several RTI applications on a court case filed by the appellant’s wife against the appellant, in the Saket Court, which is subjudice. Without attending the hearing, the appellant is seeking several details and keeping the Court staff not available to attend the other regular and necessary work. All these RTI applications are repetitions, mostly frivolous/vexatious and intended to cause difficulties to the RTI wing of the Saket Court to adversely affect the case filed by his wife. The appellant is trying to run a simultaneous/parallel trial through RTI Act. It is misuse of RTI. This RTI application of the appellant itself is an obstruction or impediment to the proceedings before the court of law. Once he is subjected to the jurisdiction of the Court of law, either as a petitioner or respondent, he will have to follow and complete that process in a Court of law. He has to explore the possibility of getting information through that process only because he is already in the Court of law. The common sense and the common law explains that a citizen cannot run processes for two remedies at a time on the same subject matter each of which will obstruct the other.
6. The appellant is not expected to harass his wife and along with her, entire court staff because she questioned his harassment under Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act. The Commission considers this kind of RTI applications as misuse and wants the appellant to refrain from misuse of the RTI Act. The Commission warns the appellant not to repeat this again. The respondent authority has every authority to take appropriate action prosecution or civil, besides seeking costs against the appellant.
7. The action of the appellant in seeking information through the RTI Act about a case pending for trial, without attending it reflect malicious intention and it would amount to obstruction in the legal proceedings and also disrespect to the process of adjudication.
8. The Commission rejects the second appeal as misuse of RTI and directs the PIO to place this order before the Judge for appropriate action against the appellant with regard to harassment of court staff with frivolous applications under RTI, obstructing their work and judicial proceedings of the court, loss of time and revenue on furnishing copies of documents and disrespect towards the court by not attending the court.
(M.Sridhar Acharyulu)
Information Commissioner
Citation: Vijay Prakash Gupta v. Saket Court in Case No. CIC/SA/A/2014/000965