CIC: It must be shown that the disclosure of the information would ‘impede’ or even on a lesser threshold ‘hamper’ or ‘interfere’ with the investigation; PIO has failed to discharge this burden u/Section 19(5) - CIC: PIO is hereby issued a strict warning

O 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), M/o. Finance, Department Of Economic Affairs, New Delhi seeking following information:-

“Please refer attached scan copy of letter no. F.no. NCSC/Pune/23/2018/SSWII/638 dated 05.12.2018 duly signed by Smt. Anuradha Dusane, Assistant Director. In this connection provide the following documents:

1. Provide inward number and date of receiving letter by the office of Shri Prashant Goyal, GS (CC, UN & MI), DEA, MOF, North Block, New Delhi.

2. W.r.t. p.no. C (1) above, Provide the zerox copy of letter no. F. no. NCSC/Pune/23/2018/SSWII/638 dated 05.12.2018 alongwith file noting and signature of the officers.

3. Provide the zerox copies of documents/approvals/letters/notes which are executed/ prepared /issued/received by Currency and Coinage Division, Department of Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, North Block, New Delhi- 110001 to till date alongwith file noting and signature of the officers.

4. Provide Action Taken Report by JS-(CC, UN & MI) till date alongwith file noting and signature of the employees.”

2. The CPIO responded on 31-01-2019. The appellant filed the first appeal dated 17-01-2019 which was disposed of by the first appellate authority on 28-06- 2020. The appellant filed a second appeal u/Section 19(3) A second appeal against the decision under sub-section (1) shall lie within ninety days from the date on which the decision should have been made or was actually received, with the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission: Provided that the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission, as the case may be, may admit the appeal after the expiry of the period of ninety days if it is satisfied that the appellant was prevented by sufficient cause from filing the appeal in time. of the RTI Act before the Commission requesting to take appropriate legal action against the CPIO u/Section 20 of the RTI Act, 2005 and also to direct him to provide the sought for information.

Hearing:

3. The appellant, Mr. Satish Ashok Sherkhane attended the hearing through audio conferencing. Mr. Rajeev Ranjan Singh, Under Secy. and Mr. Dalip Singh, Under Secy. participated in the hearing representing the respondent through audio conferencing. The written submissions are taken on record.

4. The appellant contended that disclosing the inward number and date of receiving the letter dated 05-12-2018 by the office of Shri Prashant Goyal, GS (CC, UN & MI), DEA, MOF, North Block, New Delhi would in no way attract the exemption u/Section 8(1)(h) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders; Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders; Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders; of the RTI Act, 2005. Further, he submitted that the respondent has not indicated as to how disclosure of the documents pertaining to action taken on the letter dated 05-12-2018 would impede the process of investigation/ prosecution and hence, the respondent should be directed to provide him the sought for information.

5. Reiterating their written submissions dated 02-09-2020, the respondent submitted as follows:-

“It is submitted that the RTI application (DOEAF/R/2018/50628) of Shri Satish Ashok Sherkhane was received on 16.12.2019 through RTIMIS (copy attached). The reply to RTI was given vide letter dated 31.01.2019 (copy attached) as follows:

“In respect of the reply to Point (i), (ii) & (iii), it is stated that this Division has observed that the information sought in the said RTI application is closely related to a matter which is under examination & investigation. The information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders is exempted under the provision of Para 8 (h) of the RTI Act, 2005. Therefore, the information sought by you may not be provided at this stage. However, whenever a final decision taken on the matter, the RTI application would be accordingly apprised of the same at the earliest.”

The then CPIO has intimated that since he just joined SPMC section and there was lot of work in the Section, no Section Officer was available to assist on the matters. Further, he has intimated that the SPMC and Coin Section receives lot of PMO reference, VIP references, Public Grievances, Court matters regular matters of SPMC and Coin which requires lot of time to complete. During the course of handling important matters, sometime RTI applications were not timely disposed of. He had to try hard to complete the task. There was no wrongful intention of the then CPIO in slight delay in the reply. He has therefore requested to kindly condone the delay for submission of the reply. The inconvenience, if any caused to the applicant, is regretted.”

Decision:

6. From the foregoing, it emerges that the respondent has simply quoted Section 8(1)(h) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders; Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders; Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders; of the RTI Act, 2005 without showing any plausible justification for withholding the information. Accordingly, the documents pertaining to action taken on the representation forwarded by Smt. Anuradha Dusane, Assistant Director, National Commission of Scheduled Caste, Pune including the inward number and date of receiving the said letter by the office of Shri Prashant Goyal, GS (CC, UN & MI), DEA, MOF, North Block, New Delhi should be provided to the appellant. In this regard, it is apt to refer to the law propounded by the Hon’ble Delhi High Court in Bhagat Singh v. CIC & Anrs., WP(C) 3114/2007 decided on 03-12-2007, wherein it was held as under:

“13. Access to information, under Section 3 of the Act, is the rule and exemptions under Section 8, the exception. Section 8 being a restriction on this fundamental right, must therefore is to be strictly construed. It should not be interpreted in manner as to shadow the very right itself. Under Section 8, exemption from releasing information is granted if it would impede the process of investigation or the prosecution of the offenders. It is apparent that the mere existence of an investigation process cannot be a ground for refusal of the information; the authority withholding information must show satisfactory reasons as to why the release of such information would hamper the investigation process. Such reasons should be germane, and the opinion of the process being hampered should be reasonable and based on some material. Sans this consideration, Section 8(1)(h) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders; Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders; Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders; and other such provisions would become a haven for dodging demands for information.”

7. In view of the ratio laid down in the aforementioned decision of Bhagat Singh (Supra), this Commission observes that mere pendency of investigation is not sufficient justification by itself for withholding the information. It must be shown that the disclosure of the information would ‘impede’ or even on a lesser threshold ‘hamper’ or ‘interfere’ with the investigation. The CPIO has failed to discharge this burden u/Section 19(5) In any appeal proceedings, the onus to prove that a denial of a request was justified shall be on the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, who denied the request. of the RTI Act, 2005. Therefore, the CPIO is directed to provide the information requested by the appellant, within a period of 15 working days from the date of receipt of this order.

8. There is delay in responding to the RTI application and therefore, the CPIO is hereby issued a strict warning for future to be more meticulous and not to contravene the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005.

9. With the above observations, the appeal is disposed of. 10. Copy of the decision be provided free of cost to the parties.

Neeraj Kumar Gupta

Information Commissioner

Citation: Satish Ashok Sherkhane v. M/o. Finance, Department of Economic Affairs in Second Appeal No. CIC/DOEAF/A/2019/604044, Date : 03-09-2020