Can the E-mails written by the son in law to daughter of the applicant be disclosed under RTI?
14 Jul, 2012Background
The appellant sought the copies of documents submitted by his son in law to the public authority in response to the applicant’s complaint. The Public Information Officer (PIO) denied for the information stating that third party has objected the under section 8(1)(j) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person. of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The PIO also informed the applicant that all the documents filed by his son in law have already been sent to him.
Proceedings
During the hearing, the appellant stated that he had requested for copies of emails written by his son in law to his wife (daughter of the appellant) and thus such emails are not personal. He also alleged that the said emails contained abusive language. He submitted that copies of his own complaints have not been provided to him by the respondents. The respondents stated that the information sought by the appellant is personal to a third party, disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest.
View of CIC
The Central Information Commission (CIC) observed that information sought by the appellant was purely ‘personal’ to third party the disclosure of which would cause unwarranted invasions of privacy of third party, especially when the third party has objected to disclosure of the said information. The Commission directed that there shall be no disclosure obligation on the respondents with regard to the emails, stating that the Appellant has not proved any ‘larger public interest’ which would warrant the disclosure of the present information. However, the Commission directed the PIO to provide the copies of complaint written by the applicant himself.
Citation: Mr. S.K. Sharma v. Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), in File No. CIC/AD/A/2012/000874
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/463
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission