Information regarding prosecution sanction sought from CVC in cases of corruption
29 Dec, 2012Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) seeking variety of information regarding the prosecution sanction sought in cases of corruption against government officers, staff, public servants and politicians during the period from January 2001 to December 2011. The Public Information Officer (PIO) informed the appellant that there was no readily available database based on which the desired information could be provided and that it would disproportionately divert their resources if this were to be compiled.
Proceeding
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the appellant submitted that both the PIO was wrong in using the provisions of section 7(9) An information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question. of the RTI Act and denying the information. He insisted that the information could have been provided in whatever form it was available. The respondent submitted that the CVC did not seek any prosecution sanction and had only a monitoring role while the actual prosecution sanction was sought by prosecuting authorities like the CBI and others. Therefore, the CVC did not have any such information readily available with it. He further submitted that searching out the details sought by the appellant from innumerable files in the CVC for a period of nearly 11 years would be an extremely time consuming task. The Commission observed that the CVC itself did not seek any prosecution sanction and it could not have the desired information in such details as sought by the appellant. The appellant agreed that he would be satisfied with whatever information was available in the CVC on his queries.
View of CIC
The CIC directed the PIO to provide to the appellant the copies of any report or statement prepared from time to time containing any information regarding the cases in which prosecution sanction had been sought by any agency from the Central Government Ministries/Departments.
Citation: Mr. C.J. Karira v. Central Vigilance Commission File No. CIC/SM/A/2012/000716
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/909
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission