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CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION(Room No.315, B-Wing, August Kranti Bhawan, Bhikaji Cama Place, New Delhi 110 066)

File No.CIC/AD/A/2012/003544-SA

(Shashi Prabha Vs. Bhagwan Mahavir Hospital)

Appellant : Shashi Prabha

Respondent : Bhagwan Mahavir Hospital

Date of hearing : 28.1.2014

Date of decision : 28.1.2014

Information Commissioner : Prof. M. Sridhar Acharyulu

(Madabhushi Sridhar)

Referred Sections : Sections 3, 8(1)(j), 11(1) and

19(3) of the RTI Act

Result : Appeal allowed / disposed of

FACTS

Heard today dated 28.1.14. Appellant present. Public Authority is

represented by Dr.Suman Singal and Dr.Suman Kumari

2. Mr. Arun Kumar, (hereinafter called the RTI Applicant) filed an RTI

application dt.11.5.12 with the PIO of the Respondent Public Authority seeking

certain information relating to an employee Mrs S. (hereinafter referred to as

Appellant).

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i) Occupation of her father given by her in family details

which was supposed to be submitted at the time of

recruitment.

ii) Provide me the details of family members of Appellant at

the time of recruitment and after the recruitment during

her service along with the dependent and independent

family member’s name for the above periods. Provide the

documents submitted by her along with the information.

iii) Has the Appellant informed the department about her

marriage. Provide the intimation documents thereof.

iv) Details of moveable and immoveable property of the

Appellant as per conduct rules.

v) Provide me the details of DGHS card along with photo

copy and how many persons are dependent in Appellant’s DGHS

card. Has any one of them taken benefits of health facility from your

department.

vi) Has the Appellant given intimation to concerned

department regarding the civil case at Tis Hazari Court

pending against her before the honourable court.

vii) Provide annual property return document of Appellant.

The PIO informed the Appellant vide letter dt.2.6.12 that she (PIO) intends

to disclose information against points 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 to the RTI Applicant. The

Appellant filed an appeal dt.28.6.12 with the Appellate Authority requesting not to

disclose information to the RTI Applicant. The Appellate Authority vide order

dt.20.7.12 upheld the decision of the PIO. The relevant portion of the order is

given below:

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The appellant argued that, she has objection for disclosure of personal

information as RTI applicant is her brother-in-law and this is grievance as there is a

family feud between RTI applicant and her and the information sought may be

misused.

After going through the submissions made by appellant and PIO, I am of

the considered view, that the information for Points No.1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 must be

disclosed to the RTI Applicant and the orders of PIO are upheld.

Being aggrieved with the reply, the Appellant approached the Commission

vide her second appeal dt.13.10.12 before CIC. The details of domestic disputes

between the RTI applicant and his wife (sister of the Appellant) is given below:

The Appellant’s elder sister soon after her marriage with the RTI applicant

found that she had become prey in the hands of greedy and dowry loving peoples

and when the Appellant’s sister came to know that her husband is already a

divorcee, she has tried to purchase a flat out of her own funds as she is working as

a teacher in Salwan Boys senior secondary school. The Appellant’s sister was

thrown out of the flat by her husband when she was eight months pregnant. For

the last three years, the RTI applicant never came to see her daughter and never

paid a single penny for her maintenance and upbringing. The RTI applicant after

throwing his wife out of the flat filed a false and frivolous case against his wife in

order to grab the self-acquired property of Appellant’s sister and he has also made

his wife’s brother and sisters defendant in the said case.

The Appellant’s sister filed a criminal complaint against her husband and

in-laws for her continuous torture and harassment. In turn, the husband also filed

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criminal case against the family members of the Appellant including the RTI

Applicant’s wife in Uttar Pradesh.

The RTI Applicant in order to escape from the liability of paying

maintenance to his wife and young daughter and also to save himself and his

family members from the criminal case started filing RTI applications one after the

other, complaints in the department of brother and sister of the Appellant. The RTI

application under the present appeal is also one of the ulterior step in order to

pressurize Appellant and her family members so that they would withdraw criminal

case filed against him and his family members and also relinquish their claim on

the above said flat.

3. The Appellant in her appeal had stated that FAA ignored the provisions of

section 8(1)(j) and 11(1) of the RTI Act while allowing disclosure of information to

the RTI Applicant. She feels it is personal information and as a third party, she is

entitled to protect her right to privacy. She also claims that disclosure of

information sought is not related to any public activity, will not serve any public

interest and in contrary, such disclosure would harm herself personally besides

amounting to unwarranted invasion of her privacy besides facilitating RTI applicant

to harass herself and other sisters and brothers of the RTI Applicant’s wife with

whom RTI Applicant has several civil and criminal cases (Appellant is the sister-in-

law of the RTI Applicant) about domestic relations. The Appellant also claims that

FAA order is contrary to the letter and spirit of not only provisions of Section 8(1)(j)

and Section 11 but of the whole RTI Act. She strongly contended that no personal

information about her should be disclosed. She added that RTI Applicant has

been maliciously filing several RTI applications against brothers and sisters

(including herself) of the RTI Applicant’s wife. RTI Applicant is frequently asking

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about the minute details of service related information of his wife’s brothers and

sisters (including Appellant) and trying to build up some or the other false case out

of it only to harass all of them to wreck vengeance against his wife who is fighting

for her rights. Hence, she made a strong appeal to the Commission not to disclose

any of her personal information.

The main issues for consideration before the Commission are:

a) Whether the appellant here is third party?

b) Whether following information sought about her constitute private

information or information with the public authority that can be disclosed:

(i) What is her designation, status etc in respondent office?

(ii) What did she stated about her marital status at the time of

recruitment?

(iii) What did she stated about civil case pending against her (filed by

RTI applicant)?

(iv) What is the statement of her movable and immovable properties

submitted at the time of recruitment?

(v) What did she tell as her father’s occupation?

(vi) What was the list of dependents on her, submitted by her?

(vii) What is her DGHS card and who are all eligible in her family to take

benefit under that, and other details.

These questions can be broadly be reduced into two issues, whether

information sought is personal information of the appellant and whether she is the

third party. Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act is given below:

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‘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 ’

Is it personal information?

Generally the designation and status and to some extent salary information

of employee of public authority also could be disclosed under RTI Act, but the other

information sought in this case such as marital status, civil cases pending, assets

& liabilities, movable and immovable properties, father’s occupation, list of

dependents and list of people eligible in her family for DGHS are all personal in

character. They might be required for the employer to employ that particular

person, but such particulars do not have any relation to nature of her work in such

public authority. Moreover, the particulars sought, as mentioned above, have no

connection with any other public activity if not that of public authority. In fact, the

RTI appellant is trying to know entire service particulars and her family details

through the public authority, which are rightly exempted from the disclosure by the

RTI Act.

The Supreme Court in Girish Ramachandra case in 2012 (Special Leave

Petition (Civil) No. 27734 of 2012) upholding the CIC order, has rightly reiterated

that ‘the performance of an employee/officer in an organization is primarily a matter

between the employee and the employer and normally those aspects are governed

by the service rules which fall under the expression ‘personal information’, the

disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or public interest. On

the other hand, the disclosure of which would cause unwarranted invasion of

privacy of that individual’.

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In Appeal no. CIC/AT/A/2006/00311 Janardan Dubey v Office of Joint

Secretary (Trg) & CAO, Ministry of Defence, dated 3 November 2006, Mr A N

Tiwari, Information Commissioner held that the details of family members under

CGHS Card, the marriage information, names of nominees, details about any

disciplinary action pending against were personal in nature, and disclosure of

which would have led to unwarranted harassment and intimidation of the employee

of the other parties. This was exactly the apprehension of appellant in this case

about the husband of her sister, against whom he is leading several litigations.

The property details, like assets and liabilities, or movable or immovable

properties of public servant are generally disclosable as it would have something to

do with transparency and accountability of public servants. In this case the details

of such information from a lower level employee such as staff nurse cannot be

considered to have any effect on accountability or transparency. As the activities

and nature of her job are totally different and unconnected to the purpose for which

such information is sought to be disclosed.

The Commission on perusing the information sought comes to the

conclusion that information relating to the occupation of Appellant’s father,

Appellant’s family details (including her dependent family members) at the time of

recruitment and after recruitment need not be given as they squarely fall under the

category of personal information.

PIO of the Respondent Public Authority should have examined carefully

every point of information that was being sought by the RTI Applicant, who, as per

their submissions, has history of filing several RTI applications allegedly to meet

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his own selfish interests against his wife and should have denied all that

information which is personal, prohibited/exempted by the RTI Act.

The Delhi High Court in Arvind Kejriwal Vs CPIO (AIR 2010 Del 216 

) has

made it very clear that CPIO or the Appellate Authority has to hear third party

before taking a decision and third party may plead a privacy defence which for

good reasons could be overruled. This is facilitated by the procedure outlined u/s

11(1) of RTI Act which also include that CIC may still decide that information should

be disclosed in public interest overruling the objections the third party may have in

disclosure of such information. In this case, there is enough justification for

considering the information sought by the RTI Applicant as personal information of

the Appellant and Appellant has every right to secure her privacy and personal

information and also that neither the PIO nor the AA could establish any overriding

public interest in overruling the objections made by the Appellant to the disclosure

of such information.

The CIC recently on 8th January 2014 in the case of Sunita Jain Vs.BSNL

(CIC/BS/A/2012/002032/4300) held that information of immoveable and moveable

property returns of an officer is personal information, relates to third party and no

public purpose is involved hence, exempted u/s 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act while relying

on the SC decision on Girish Ramachandra Deshpande Vs CIC.

Is appellant a Third Party?

If an applicant is seeking information which is under the control of an

officer/employee of public authority the PIO cannot consider him as third party and

seek his permission/objection to reveal it. The employee of public authority whose

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personal information the RTI applicant seeking is certainly the third party,

especially when the information sough is not related to public authority’s activity.

Thus, when the RTI applicant in this case seeking personal information or

information which has no connection with public activity of appellant, appellant has

every right as third party to all procedure safeguards prescribed under RTI Act.

When the PIO and Appellate Authority decided to disclosure of such personal

information, she has every right to approach Commission and seek prevention of

disclosure.

No reasons given

Neither the PIO nor the FAA gave in their respective orders any reasons

how and why the information they were directing to disclose was considered as

public information or what was the overriding public interest that made them to

decide to disclose.

The Commission does not find any reason for the disclosure of personal

information sought by the RTI Applicant and the respondent public authority has

not made out any case if there is any overriding public interest in disclosure.

The RTI Applicant claimed that his financial interest is affected in the matter

where he is seeking legal relief. The fact that appellant is sister of applicant’s wife

will not in any way establish any financial relationship between him and appellant.

Hence PIO & FAA should have straight away refused to disclose such information.

The RTI applicant has referred to following decisions of CIC:

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(M. Sridhar Acharyulu)

Information Commissioner

Authenticated true copy

(Tarun Kumar)

Additional Registrar

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