RTI application seeking multiple questions relating to election duty details

Background

The appellant sought the details of the different employees who were deployed on election duty relating to Assembly Elections 2006, Parliamentary Elections 2009 and Municipality Elections 2010 and other related information through a Right to Information (RTI) application. The Public Information Officer (PIO) transferred part of the RTI application to the PIO of other zone who provided partial information to the appellant. The appellant stated that the required information was not provided as per the points asked. The respondent submitted that the information available as per the records has been already provided.

View of CIC

The Central Information Commission (CIC) directed the PIO to provide the attested lists and the current status of the enquiry and outcome of the said enquiry to the appellant. The Commission further directed the PIO to check whether information is held with the Public Authority and if so, the procedure as per Section 11 of the RTI Act, 2005should be followed with respect to the disclosure of third party information. The Commission also suggested the appellant to make precise queries under RTI as the application should deal with one subject matter only and multiple queries on different subject matters should be avoided.

Comments

Legally, there is no limitation of restricting the RTI application to one subject. It is, however, very demanding and awkward for a PIO to deal with an application having a dozen issues relating to multiple topics.

Citation:  Shri Siddhartha Sar v LIC of India in Appeal No. CIC/DS/A/2011/002061