Life and marriage certificate submitted to EPFO by a widow for family pension
25 Mar, 2013Background
The appellant stated that a widow is being paid family pension which is admissible to her till she is remarried. He submitted that unless the life and marriage certificate are deposited after certain fixed period, the payment of pension cannot be made. He further stated that it was intimated by the EPFO that a particular widow had been paid family pension from 09-05-94 to 31-05-2005. The payment had been stopped from 01/06/2005 for want of life and marriage certificates. In this regard, he filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the EPFO. The Public Information Officer (PIO) did not provide any information to the appellant.
Proceedings
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the appellant insisted for providing the copy(s) of life and non-remarriage declarations submitted by the lady. The PIO stated that the information was related to a third party pensioner and since the appellant has not cited any larger public interest to justify the disclosure exemption has been claimed under section 8(1)(e) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information; of the RTI Act. The appellant argued that the EPFO authorities have themselves earlier confirmed that pension has been paid to that lady and he wanted them to confirm that her life and non-remarriage certificates are available on their record. The PIO stated that he will issue a confirmation as requested by the appellant.
View of CIC
The Commission directed the PIO to furnish a confirmation to the appellant.
Citation: Mr. Dewan Singh Jaggi v. APFC EPFO in File No. CIC/BS/A/2012/000144/2086
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2013/CIC/1150
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission