Disclosure of insurance policies deposited by a development officer of LIC under RTI

Background        

The appellant sought the details of the insurance policies deposited by a development officer of LIC. The Public Information Officer (PIO) provided partial information to the appellant. The First Appellate Authority (FAA) too denied the rest of the information and held it exempt 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.

Proceedings

During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the PIO stated that information consisting of 128 pages has already been provided to the appellant and for rest of the information action was taken under the provisions of section 11 of the Act. The third party has denied consent for disclosure of information stating that it was his personal information. The appellant submitted that the third party was his supervisory officer and he wanted the information as requested in order to judge the level of support being provided to other agents.

View of CIC

The Central Information Commission (CIC) directed the respondent to provide the information only in terms of numbers, regarding the total number of policies that were taken between April 2010 to June 2010 and the total number of policies that had lapsed and the total number that were continuing.

Citation: Mr. Praveen Kumar Agrawal v. LIC of India in Appeal No. CIC/DS/A/2011/002191