ORDER

Information sought:

The Appellant filed an RTI Application dated 05.10.2020 seeking information on the following three points:

Shri Udit Sah, Central Public Information Officer / Assistant P.F. Commissioner, Haldwani, vide letter dated 27.10.2020, enclosed a letter given by Shri Udit Sah, Assistant P.F. Commissioner (Admin.), Haldwani, dated 26.10.2020, wherein provided point-wise information to the Appellant as under:

Being dissatisfied, the Appellant filed a First Appeal dated 02.11.2020. The First Appellate Authority vide order dated 01.12.2020, informed as under:

Grounds for Second Appeal:

The Appellant filed a Second Appeal u/s 19 of the Act on the ground of unsatisfactory reply furnished by the Respondent. Appellant requested the Commission to direct the CPIO to provide complete information sought for.

Submissions made by Appellant and Respondent during Hearing:

The Appellant stated that he has not received any relevant information qua the instant RTI Application from the Respondent. Upon being queried by the Commission to establish larger public interest in seeking the averred CCTV footage, he stated that two persons in the name Shri Aashish Kumar and Shri Gaurav Sharma allegedly involved in collecting bribes in his name and that is why he is seeking CCTV footage of the concerned area mentioned in his RTI Application.

The Respondent submitted that at the time of filing of RTI Application, the Appellant has not established his purpose for seeking such information. He further added that purpose of installing CCTV cameras in public places is to ensure surveillance and security and disseminating of CCTV footage of such area where the postal receipt section is located would hamper their day-to-day official activities and safety of the records and accordingly they have denied it under Section 8 (1) (g) of the RTI Act. He furthermore submitted that CCTV footage contains images of other persons and disclosure of that would result in unwarranted invasion of the privacy of third parties, hence the same has been denied under Section 8 (1) (j) of the RTI Act.

The Commission interjected and quizzed the Respondent that why they have quoted Section 8 (1) (h) of the RTI Act while denying the information to the Appellant, the Respondent could not provide a cogent reply.

A written submission has been received by the Commission from Shri. Udit Sah, Central Public Information Officer, Regional PF Commissioner – II, Regional Office (Haldwani) vide letter dated 28.04.2022, wherein the commission has been apprised as under:

Decision:

Upon perusal of the facts on record as well as on the basis of the proceedings during the hearing, the Commission observes that the information sought in the RTI application, has been denied on the grounds of Section 8(1) (g) (h) and (j) of the RTI Act. The Commission observes that the purpose of installing CCTV cameras in public places is to ensure surveillance, so as to keep a vigil on the anti- social elements and illicit happenings like vandalism etc., to check crime and facilitate a quick response during an emergency. These are related to the maintenance of law and order. CCTV footage can also provide evidence in case crimes do occur and help the law enforcement agencies. However, while such systems continue to enjoy general public support they do involve intrusion into the lives of ordinary people as they go about their day to day business and can raise wider privacy concerns. The Commission in the matter of Reena Richard v. State Bank of India, Mumbai in Decision No. CIC/MP/A/2014/000236 dated 28.11.2014 observed as follows:

“The respondents submitted that the appellant had not specified as to how she was connected to the information sought because the Branch could not locate any transaction done by the applicant on that branch on these days. They (sic) also submitted that the CCTV footage contained images of other customers doing their transactions and disclosure of that would result in unwarranted invasion of th