CIC: The appellant did not request for inspection of records in the RTI application hence her contention requesting to allow inspection of records does not hold any merit - CIC: First Appeal was not decided; FAA cautioned for the contravention of RTI Act
16 Sep, 2019O R D E R
1. The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) Bar Council of India, New Delhi seeking information on five points pertaining to
(i) total amount of funds received from sale of Advocates Welfare Stamps of the denomination of Rs. 5/- and Rs. 10/- during the period from 01.01.2015 to 31.12.2016;
(ii) total amount received from donations from various sources for the aforementioned period, etc.
2. The appellant filed a second appeal before the Commission on the ground that the information sought was not provided by the CPIO/ FAA. The appellant therefore prayed to allow disclosure of information.
Hearing:
3. The appellant Smt. K.R. Chitra was present in person. The respondent was not present despite notice.
4. The appellant submitted that incorrect, incomplete and misleading information was provided by the respondent. She also submitted that her request to allow inspection of records was not accepted by the CPIO though the RTI Act very clearly contains provisions for inspection of records.
Decision:
5. The Commission, after hearing the submissions of the appellant and perusing the records, finds that an appropriate reply has been provided to the appellant by the CPIO. The Commission also observes that the appellant did not request for inspection of records in the RTI application hence the contention of the appellant during the instant hearing as well as in the first appeal requesting to allow inspection of records does not hold any merit. However, the Commission observes that the First Appeal was not decided which is in contravention to the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005. Therefore, the Commission counsels the FAA to be more careful in future so that such lapses do not recur and information is provided to the information seeker within the stipulated time.
6. With the above observations, the appeal is disposed of.
7. Copy of the decision be provided free of cost to the parties.
Sd/-
Sudhir Bhargava
Chief Information Commissioner
Citation: K.R. Chitra v. CPIO, Bar Council of Delhi in Second Appeal No. CIC/BCOI/A/2017/181089/BCOIN, Date of decision: 14.08.2019