Seeking details of educational loan given to students from IIT, IIM, AIIMS, PGIMS from bank
24 May, 2013Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Bank of Baroda seeking information about the students from IIT, IIM, AIIMS, PGIMS who had applied for educational loan. He wanted to know as to how many students were finally selected with amount distributed and how many were rejected along with reasons. The Public Information Officer (PIO) provided point wise information to the appellant.
Proceedings
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the respondent explained that the information sought was not available with the Bank in any consolidated form and that it would need to be collected from the various branches of the bank spread all over India. The respondent also informed that collecting such information would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority [section 7(9)]. The respondent further stated that the bank has acted in accordance with the RTI Act and no further action is required to be done in the matter.
View of CIC
The Commission agreed with the response of the respondent and rejected the appeal observing that no intervention is required in the matter.
Comments
On many occasions it has been observed that a public authority tends to collect information when an application is filed to them. This is not required, as depicted in the case above, as per the letter and spirit of the RTI Act.
Citation: Mr. Nitesh Kumar Tripathi v. Bank of Baroda in Decision No. CIC/VS/A/2012/000263/03043
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2013/CIC/1306
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission