Disclosure of maintenance allowance to be paid to the separated wife under RTI

Background

The appellant was separated from her husband and wanted support through maintenance allowance. She filed the RTI application seeking how much maintenance allowance is payable to her as per the affidavit furnished by her husband to NDMC. She also sought a copy of salary statement and affidavit along with the letter submitted by her husband giving details of his salary and deductions. The Public Information Officer (PIO) provided the copy of salary slip but denied the copy of affidavit 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 RTI Act claiming that the same was furnished by an employee to his employer and would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual.

View of CIC

The respondents submitted that the third party had denied disclosure of information to his wife saying that it is his personal information. The Central Information Commission directed the PIO to provide the information observing that the contents of the affidavit submitted by the third party are already known to the appellant and that they are already in circulation and therefore are known to all. Thus there is no harm in providing a copy of the affidavit to the appellant

Citation: Ms. Sunita v. New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) in File No. CIC/AD/A/2012/000657