ORDER

1. The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), O/o. the Commissioner of Income Tax, New Delhi seeking following information about his wife Ms. Monika:-

1. “Income tax return copies for the year April 2016-March 2017 and April 2017-March 2018.

2. if copies are not possible to be provided, please detail the GROSS INCOME amount for the following financial years

2(a) April 2016-March 2017 2(b) April 2017-March 2018

2(c) April 2018-November 2018.”

2. The CPIO responded on 28-01-2019. The appellant filed the first appeal dated 20-02-2019 which was disposed of by the first appellate authority on 22- 04-2019. Thereafter, he filed a second appeal u/Section 19(3) of the RTI Act before the Commission requesting to take appropriate legal action against the CPIO u/Section 20 of the RTI Act, 2005 and also to direct him to provide the sought for information.

Hearing:

3. The appellant, Mr. Dheeraj Narang attended the hearing through audio conferencing. Mr. S M Prasad, CPIO participated in the hearing representing the respondent through audio conferencing. The written submissions are taken on record.

4. The appellant stated that as on the date of RTI application, there was no decree of divorce and therefore, the CPIO should have provided him at least the gross income of his wife Smt. Monika. He further requested for copies of income tax returns filed by his wife from April 2016-March 2017 and April 2017-March 2018. However, now, he expressed that the relevance of this information is already over and he just wanted to know whether he was entitled to the ITR copies and gross income of Smt. Monika as on the date of RTI application.

5. The respondent contended that the information sought by the appellant is exempted u/Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005 and no public interest would be served in its disclosure.

Decision:

6. This Commission observes that the appellant has not established any larger public interest in disclosing details of the income tax returns of Smt. Monika which is personal in nature exempted u/Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005. This legal position has been upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India as well as the Hon’ble High Courts of Bombay and Delhi which is being reproduced hereinafter. With regards to the applicability of Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005 regarding non-disclosure of the Income Tax Returns, this Commission refers to the judgment dated 03-10-2012 of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in SLP(C) No. 27734 of 2012 titled as Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. Central Information Commission & ors., wherein, it has been held as under:-

“14. The details disclosed by a person in his income tax returns are "personal information" which stand exempted from disclosure under clause (j) of Section 8(1) of the RTI Act, unless involves a larger public interest and the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the Appellate Authority is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information.”

7. Since filing of the Income Tax Returns by an individual with the Income Tax Department is not a public activity and rather it is in the nature of an obligation which a citizen owes to the State viz. to pay his taxes, this information cannot be disclosed to the appellant in the absence of any larger public interest relying on the legal principle enunciated in the judgment dated 11-06-2015 rendered by the Hon’ble Bombay High Court in Writ Petition No. 8753 of 2013 titled as Shailesh Gandhi v. The Central Information Commission, wherein, it has been observed as follows:-

“16…The Petitioner possibly being aware of the said position has therefore sought to contend that filing of the Income Tax Returns is a public activity. I am afraid the said contention is thoroughly misconceived as filing of Income Tax Returns can be no stretch of imagination be said to be a public activity, but i