Information related to the sources of income & expenditure mentioned by Rustamji Institute of Technology in the application submitted to AICTE for seeking Extension of Approval was denied - CIC warned the PIO to be careful while providing reply under RTI

Information Sought:

The appellant has sought the details (in the format given in the RTI Application) related to the sources of income and expenditure mentioned by Rustamji Institute of Technology (Diploma), Tekanpur, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, ID–1- 484611381, in the application submitted to AICTE, New Delhi for seeking Extension of Approval for the academic years 2006-07 to 2019-20.

Grounds for Second Appeal

The CPIO did not provide the desired information.

Submissions made by Appellant and Respondent during Hearing:

The appellant submitted that he is not satisfied with the reply given by the PIO and the FAA order was also not proper. The CPIO, Smt Ruchika Kem accepted that the reply provided by the PIO was not proper and apologised for the same. She also submitted that Rustamji Institute of Technology is a military institute and Government enterprise and hence they do not pay professional fees. She also stated that being a military institute, they cannot provide information. She further submitted that information upto the year 2012 has been weeded out as per the weeding out policy and therefore no information for the period prior to 2012 is available. The appellant contested the above submission of the CPIO and submitted that he had also filed a RTI application on 10.05.2019 to the College, which was replied on 31.05.2019 by the College, and in that they claimed that the College is not a public authority as defined u/s 2(h) “public authority” means any authority or body or institution of self-government established or constituted (a) by or under the Constitution; (b) by any other law made by Parliament; (c) by any other law made by State Legislature; (d) by notification issued or order made by the appropriate Government, and includes any- (i) body owned, controlled or substantially financed; (ii) non-Government organization substantially financed, directly or indirectly by funds provided by the appropriate Government; of RTI Act. The PIO, Dr C S Verma submitted that the College was a polytechnic college and was dealt with by the Directorate of Technical Education since 2006-12. He further submitted that in the year 2010 it came under the purview of AICTE but the previous documents were not shared with AICTE by the concerned Directorate. He also submitted that as a result the documents were not available. However, he could not justify why he had not transferred the said RTI application to the concerned Directorate or why he had not asked for assistance u/s 5(4). He tendered his unconditional apology for the improper reply.

The CPIO, Smt Ruchika Kem summed up stating that she is already in the process of taking corrective measures and has already scanned and copied about 300 pages which would be relevant for the appellant and is willing to provide a revised reply within 7 days to each of the RTI applications, as there were 9 cases of similar nature that were taken up for hearing.

Observations:

Based on a perusal of the records, it was noted that the PIO vide reply dated 29.05.2019 stated as follows:

“With reference to your online RTI application, the information sought by you is not available with this office.”

The FAA vide order dated 18.06.2019 disposed of the appeals with the following observations:

“This has reference to your 9 RTI/appeals dated 01.05.2019 filed due to information not provided by the RO & PIO, CRO AICTE Bhopal, sought in RTI (Nine) applications dated 25.03.2019 I, as Appellate Authority, find that you have sought information with respect of Rustam ji Institute of Technology, MP. I find that the RO & PIO CRO AICTE Bhopal has informed you that information is not available. It is to inform that information on faculty details from AY 2012-13 onwards. (Faculty ID/ Name/ Gender/Designation/ Date of joining/ Area of specialisation/ Appointment type) of AICTE approved Institute/Polytechnics, is already available at public domain and may be accessed at Council’s website at following link https://www.facilities.aicte-india.org/dashboard/faculties” then Select year, Select-State, Select-Programme, Select-Level, Select-Course, Select Institute Type and click on Faculty details. With regard to your query, I would like to inform you that requisite information is vast and voluminous in nature, the collection and compilation of which will disproportionately divert the manpower and resource of the public authority. Hence, it will not be possible to supply the information under Section 7(9) An information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question. An information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question. of the RTI Act. It is to informed that you have sought information from AY 2006-07 onwards to 2019-20. As RO & PIO CRO AICTE Bhopal has already informed you that no such information is available. I endorse the same.”

The Commission observed that the reply dated 29.05.2019 provided by the PIO is a poor reply. The PIO grossly erred in denying the information stating it as not available, and it was seen from the records that a total of 9 appeals are being heard on 14.05.2020 and in all related 9 RTI applications, the PIO had denied the information on the ground that the same is not available. The FAA too gave a standard reply to all the appeals without any application of mind on each individual case. During the hearing the PIO, CRO, Bhopal and CPIO, RO, Delhi are taking the plea of partial records being weeded out. Further, the CPIO stating that the Institute being a military institute can not disclose their records is not maintainable, as no specific exemption exists on this ground, nor any clause was cited. The PIOs cannot take the liberty of denying information en bloc stating that it is not available, when there is every possibility of tracing the records for some periods as mentioned in the RTI application. Taking into consideration the plea that records till 2012 was weeded out it was not understood how the FAA mindlessly in his order, mentioned that it is to inform that information on faculty details from AY 2012-13 onwards. (Faculty ID/ Name/ Gender/ Designation/ Date of joining/ Area of specialisation/ Appointment type) of AICTE approved Institute/ Polytechnics, is already available at public domain and may be accessed at Council’s website at following link https://www.facilities.aicte-india.org/dashboard/faculties” then Select- year, Select-State, Select-Programme, Select-Level, Select-Course, Select Institute Type and click on Faculty details.

The information sought in the present case was details (in the format given in the RTI Application) related to the sources of income and expenditure mentioned by Rustamji Institute of Technology (Diploma), Tekanpur, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, ID–1-484611381, in the application submitted to AICTE, New Delhi for seeking Extension of Approval for the academic years 2006-07 to 2019-20. The FAA’s order which has not even considered the information sought deserves to be quashed in toto. The plea of Sec 7(9) An information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question. An information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question. taken by the FAA is also contradictory as on the one hand the respondents claim that the information is not available and on the other the FAA states that the information is voluminous, thereby giving an impression that the information is available but due to being vast and voluminous it would require too much resources to provide. What can be concluded from all the discussions held during the hearing is that the replies given by the PIO and FAA are absolutely inappropriate and incorrect. However, since the PIO & CPIO tendered an apology for the same, also admitting this fact, and also assuring the appellant and the Commission of the bonafide of giving the required information as available within a week, the Commission is taking a lenient view but advising the PIO to ensure that such poor handling of RTIs should not be repeated or else the Commission will be constrained to take serious action as per the provisions of the Act.

Decision:

The PIO, Dr C.S Verma is issued a strict warning to be careful while providing replies under the Act and refrain from providing casual replies which may attract penal action u/s 20(1) Where the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission, as the case may be, at the time of deciding any complaint or appeal is of the opinion that the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, has, without any reasonable cause, refused to receive an application for information or has not furnished information within the time specified under sub-section (1) of section 7 or malafidely denied the request for information or knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information or destroyed information which was the subject of the request or obstructed in any manner in furnishing the information, it shall impose a penalty of two hundred and fifty rupees each day till application is received or information is furnished, so however, the total amount of such penalty shall not exceed twenty-five thousand rupees: Provided that the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, shall be given a reasonable opportunity of being heard before any penalty is imposed on him: Provided further that the burden of proving that he acted reasonably and diligently shall be on the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be. and (2) of the RTI Act. The CPIO AICTE, Delhi agreed to provide a revised reply on all the 9 RTI applications heard today after coordinating with the PIO, CRO Bhopal. Hence she is directed to provide a revised point wise reply, as per the availability of records within 7 days from the date of issue of this order through e-mail, and in case the appellant press for hard copies the same also shall be sent to the appellant within 7 days from the date of withdrawal of the lockdown.

The appeal is disposed of accordingly.

Vanaja N. Sarna

Information Commissioner

Citation: Mohit Tiwari v. All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in Decision no.: CIC/AICTE/A/2019/653712/03464, Date of Decision: 14/05/2020