The court upheld exemptions for personal information under RTI, emphasizing limited disclosure rights to spouses in maintenance contexts.

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 Income Tax Officer, Ward No. 23(3), Hooghly. The appellant seeking information on three points, including, inter-alia:-

(i) Copy of form-16 related to her husband’s income tax return details for the year filed for 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 of her husband Dr. Suvendu Mallick;

(ii) Copy of relevant papers/documents relating to the gross annual income of her husband Dr. Suvendu Mallick, etc.

2. As the CPIO had not provided the requested information, the appellant filed the first appeal dated 14.01.2019 requesting that the information should be provided to him. The first appellate authority was ordered on 12.02.2019 and disposed of his first appeal. He filed a second appeal u/Section 19(3) of the RTI Act before the Commission on the ground that information has not been provided to him and requested the Commission to direct the respondent to provide complete and correct information.

Hearing:

3. The appellant attended the hearing through audio-call. The respondent, Shri Ram Shankar Nandy, CPIO attended the hearing through audio-call. The third party, Shri Suvendu Mallick attended the hearing through audio-call.

4. The appellant submitted that the respondent has wrongly denied the information under Section 8 (1)(j) of the RTI Act. The appellant submitted that being the legally wedded wife of Dr. Suvendu Mallick she is entitled to get this information.

5. Dr. Suvendu Mallick has objected for disclosure of his information to the appellant.

6. The respondent submitted that they have informed the appellant vide their letter dated 31.12.2018 that the information sought by her is personal information of third party, which is exempted from disclosure under Section 8 (1)(j) of the RTI Act.

Decision:

7. The Commission, after hearing the submissions of both the parties and after perusal of records, observes that the information sought by the appellant regarding the income tax details of her husband, etc. is personal information of third party, which cannot be disclosed under Section 8 (1)(j) of the RTI Act. The Commission referred to the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande vs. Central Information Commission & ors. SLP(C) No. 27734 of 2012 dated 03/10/2012 wherein it was 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."

However, making a distinction with the said judgment, the Division Bench of the Hon'ble High Court of M.P. in the matter of Smt. Sunita Jain vs. Pawan Kumar Jain and others W.A. No . 168/ 2015 and Smt. Sunita Jain vs. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and others W.A. No . 170/2015 dated 15.05.2018 had in a matter where the information seeker had sought the salary details of her husband from the employer held as under:

"While dealing with the Section 8 (1)(j) of the Act, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the appellant and the respondent No.1 are husband and wife and as a wife she is entitled to know what remuneration the respondent No.1 is getting. Present case is distinguishable from the case of Girish Ramchandra Deshpande (supra) and therefore the law laid down by their Lordships in the case of Girish Ramchandra Deshpande (supra) are not applicable in the p