Appellant has a personal grievance regarding schemes offered by Tata Sky DTH Services - CIC: No valid ground for passing separate orders for the second appeal & complaint; TRAI to make effort to obtain the information from Tatasky and forward to appellant

Information Sought:

The Appellant / Complainant has sought the following information regarding TATA sky:

1. Provide all the (discounted tariff / bonus / other) schemes offered by Tata Sky DTH Services to its retail customers during the period April, 2018 till May, 2021 and the effective date(s) of the said Schemes.

2. Provide details of the subscriber scheme i.e. pay in advance for 11 months subscription and get 12 months subscription free of cost, which had been offered by Tata Sky DTH services to its retail customers during the period from April, 2018 till May, 2021 and the effective date(s) of the said Scheme.

3. What are the regulatory actions which can be taken against such service providers where they do not give the credit of the schemes offered by them to the eligible customers?

Grounds for Second Appeal / complaint

The CPIO did not provide the desired information.

Submissions made by Appellant / Complainant and Respondent during Hearing:

The appellant/complainant submitted that he is not satisfied with the reply of the CPIO as the requested information was not given to him even though the matter is of larger public interest. He prayed that the information should be provided to him and penalty may be imposed on the concerned CPIO. During the hearing, he submitted that the hyper-link referred to by the CPIO in his reply does not contain the specific information sought by him. He also prayed that separate orders may be passed in respect of both of his cases. He also pointed out that since 14 months he is struggling to get the information and mere giving him the hyperlink and that too after the FAA’s order is deplorable when the same does not contain information or most of the time is not accessible.

The CPIO submitted that an appropriate reply was given to the appellant/complainant on 23.08.2021 &. 11.10.2021.

Observations:

From a perusal of the relevant case records, it is noted that initially the CPIO vide his reply dated 23.08.2021 had provided some information to the appellant/complainant, however, since the information on points no. 1 & 2 was not what was sought by the appellant/complainant, the FAA in his order directed the CPIO to provide the additional information available with him. Thereafter, in compliance with the FAA’s order, the CPIO vide his letter dated 11.10.2021 had provided a point-wise reply to the appellant/complainant whereby all the three points have been adequately answered. However, the fact remains that the hyperlink is not working and the appellant is yet to get the information.

The Commission is unable to find any flaw in the reply dated 11.10.2021, as the CPIO is not the custodian, however, as they chose to give as much information as possible it is relevant that the same is actually received by the appellant.

Having said so what is noted is that the appellant has a personal grievance regarding the fact that the benefit for 2 months balance subscription of TataSky was not given to him and irrespective of the fact that he was entitled to 03 months subscription, he was given benefit for only month. His grievance is that if full subscription was not given, his advance payment should have been refunded to him. It is brought to the notice of the appellant/complainant that under the RTI Act, only such information can be provided which is available and existing and in this particular case, whatever information was available with the respondent authority, the same was given. The respondent also informed that the service provider had also provided responses to the appellant’s queries in respect of the grievance. The RTI Act cannot be resorted to, to redress grievances of any kind.

With regard to the prayer of the appellant/complainant that separate orders may be passed, the Commission does not find any valid ground for passing separate orders for the second appeal and complaint as while deciding the case on merits, there is no negligence found in the reply of the CPIO and the Commission is satisfied that there was no malafide denial on the part of the CPIO not to provide the information. As per the submissions of the CPIO and therefore based on the fact that both the cases cover similar issues and the submissions of both the parties were also the same, no ground exists for passing separate orders.

The applicant had also submitted that even though the information asked by him is related to him (as mentioned in his RTI Application also), but the information requested by him is also of a larger public interest, as the information asked by him should have been in public domain so that anybody (specifically any of the customers of Tatasky- DTH) could access it in respect of i. Pricing of different packages offered by Tatasky as well as ii. Different Schemes run by Tatasky, which are very dynamic and which keeps on changing with the passage of time. As the availability of the above mentioned information which should be in public domain, so that anytime anyone could access it. Moreover, Tatasky is under obligation to keep all such Pricing and Schemes in public domain but it has not been done by Tatasky DTH and therefore, the required information needs to be extracted through an RTI Application.

The Commission observed that the TRAI is the controlling authority and therefore, whatever information was accessible u/s Sec 2(j) “right to information” means the right to information accessible under this Act which is held by or under the control of any public authority and includes the right to- (i) inspection of work, documents, records; (ii) taking notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records; (iii) taking certified samples of material; (iv) obtaining information in the form of diskettes, floppies, tapes, video cassettes or in any other electronic mode or through printouts where such information is stored in a computer or in any other device; of the RTI Act by them was given. Further, the applicant’s plea that updated information should be given is considered in the interest of justice as the CPIO also had admitted that the hyperlink given may not be working due to change of website domain etc.

Decision:

In view of the above, no action is taken on the complaint as no malafide intent could be found on the part of the CPIO. However, in terms of the second appeal, the CPIO TRAI is directed to make an effort to obtain the information on points no. 1 and 2 from the service provider and the inputs received be forwarded to the appellant within 7 days from the date of receipt of the order. In respect of point no. 3 the Commission finds no scope for any further relief.

The appeal is disposed of accordingly.

Vanaja N. Sarna

Information Commissioner

Citation: Akshay Kumar Malhotra v. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in CIC/TRAOI/A/2021/147091+ CIC/TRAOI/C/2021/145847, Date of Decision: 19/09/2022