Should the applicant visit the website if information is already available there?

Background

The appellant sought information about the pendency of cases in the High Courts and subordinate Courts in a certain format which he had enclosed with his RTI application. The Public Information Officer (PIO) informed that the Supreme Court did not maintain the information in the manner the appellant wanted. He suggested the appellant to visit the Supreme Court website and look at the Court News published by the Supreme Court which contained some statistics about the registration, disposal and pendency of cases by the Supreme Court, High Courts and the subordinate Courts.

View of CIC

The respondent showed the copy of the Supreme Court website to the Commission and stated that whatever statistical information the Supreme Court has, is regularly published in the Supreme Court website and that they do not have any other information. The Central Information Commission (CIC) rejected the appeal observing that the website contains a lot of statistical details about the pendency of cases and the appellant can easily obtain the sought information by visiting the site.

Citation: Shri Paramjeet Singh Mujal v. Supreme Court of India in File No. CIC/SM/A/2011/000762