O R D E R

(05.07.2023)

1. The issue under consideration arising out of the second appeal dated 15.12.2021 include non-receipt of the following information sought by the appellant through the RTI application dated 08.07.2021 and first appeal dated 18.09.2021:- (i) List of loan takers names whose loans above 100 Crs. are technically written off during each financial year since 2011-12 till 2020-21 along with write off amount.

(ii) For each of this loan account how much recovery was made till 31 st March

2021 even though they were technically written off from books.

(iii) Total write off done for all defaulters whose outstanding amount was more than 100 crores in each financial year from 2012-13 till 2020-21.

(iv) Total recovery made against these write offs in each financial year from 2012- 13 till 2020-21.

(v) Total write off done for all defaulters whose outstanding amount was less than

50 lakhs in each financial year from 2012-13 till 2020-21.

(vi) Total recovery made against these write offs in each financial year from 2012- 13 till 2020-21

2. Succinctly facts of the case are that the appellant filed an application dated 08.07.2021 under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), Punjab National Bank, New Delhi, seeking aforesaid information. The CPIO vide letter dated 19.08.2021 replied to the appellant. Aggrievedby the same, the appellant filed first appeal dated 18.09.2021. The First Appellate Authority(FAA) vide order dated 29.09.2021 disposed of the first appeal. Aggrieved bythat, the appellant filed second appeal dated 15.12.2021 before the Commission which is under consideration.

3. The appellant has filed the instant appeal dated 15.12.2021 inter alia on the grounds that reply given by the CPIO was not satisfactory. The appellant requested the Commission to direct the CPIO to provide the complete information and take necessary action as per Section 20 (1) of the RTI Act.

4. The CPIO replied vide letter dated 19.08.2021 and the same is reproduced as under:- Point no. (i) to ( iv)

Ad-hoc information on Recovery out of Written off accounts (PNB 1.0) Amount written off during the financial year										(PNB 2.0)
Items	2011- 12	2012- 13	2013- 14	2014- 15	2015- 16	2016- 17	2017- 18	201 8- 19	201 9- 20	2020- 21
No of fresh TWO customers>100 CR	NA	NA	5	5	24	20	27	28	35	38

Fresh Amount Written off > 100 CR	NA	NA	981.62	2547.37	5860.43	5683.38	6917.39	8606. 77	1006 6.24	14851.79
Recovery	NA	NA	11.18	14.29	13.46	895.82	335.88	1269. 85	838.6 7	1175.91

Point No. v & vi No record as per information sought is readily maintained and collection / compilation of the same would disproportionately divert the resources of the bank. As such the information sought is exempted u/s 7 (9) of RTI Act, 2005.

The FAA vide order dated 29.09.2021 agreed to the reply given by the CPIO.

5. The appellant attended the hearing through video conference and on behalf of the respondent Shri Jaseem Siddiqui, AGM (Law) and Shri Kunal Chauhan, Manager (Law), Punjab National Bank, Delhi (Dwarka)attended the hearing in person.

5.1. The appellant inter alia submitted that he had sought information regarding list of loan takers names whose loans above 100 crores were technically written off during each financial year since 2011-12 till 2020-21along with write off amount. He further added that rest of the information sought in the RTI application, except the names of defaulters and the total amount written off, was provided to him by the respondent public authority. The appellant averred that information with respect to the same subject matter was provided to him by the Overseas Bank two years ago and by the State Bank of India 3 years ago without invoking the provisions of Section 8(1)(d) and (e) of the RTI Act.He stated that the respondent bank may disclose the name of defaulters in response to RTI application as they had earlier published the name of some defaulters in the newspaper in

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