O R D E R

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. 3(1), Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.The appellant seeking information is as under:-

“To provide certified copies of ITR of my husband, Mr. Ankit Chaturvedi, for the years 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019 and 2019-2020”.

2. The CPIO responded on 09-08-2019. The appellant filed the first appeal dated 27.09.2019 requesting that the information should be provided to her. The first appellate authority was ordered on 17.10.2019 and disposed of her first appeal. Shefiled a second appeal u/Section 19(3) of the RTI Act before the Commission on the ground that information has not been provided to her 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 Satyendra Kumar, CPIO attended the hearing through audio-call.

4. The appellant submitted that complete and correct information has not been provided to her by the respondent on her RTI application dated 25.05.2019. The appellant further submitted that she is entitled to get the information under the RTI Act.

5. The respondent submitted that the information sought for is personal information related to third party and as per section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005, the information which relates to third party and which has no relation to any public activity or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual is exempted and therefore the Respondent is under no obligation to give the required information to the appellant.

Decision:

6. The Commission, after hearing the submissions of both the parties observes that appellant has asked for IT returns of her estranged husband. It is well established that income tax returns are personal and cannot be provided to third party as are exempted under Section 8 (1)(j) of the RTI Act. At the same time after perusal of records refers to the judgment of the Division Bench of the Hon’ble High Court of Madhya Pradesh vide its decision dated 15-05-2018 in the matter of Smt. Sunita Jain v. Pawan Kumar Jain and others, W.A. No. 168/2015 and Smt. Sunita Jain v. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and others, W.A. No.

170/2015:-

Wherein the appellant had sought third party personal information pertaining to her husband, Mr. Pawan Kumar, with whom she was in family dispute. She requested to provide the details of pay and allowances drawn by Pawan Kumar Jain for the years 2016, 2017 & 2018. The appellant in her second appeal submitted that she is in a dispute with her husband before the Family Court and hence wants the information sought.

She relied on the decision of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh in W.A no.

168/2015 & W.A no. 170/2015 in which the High Court observed as follows:

"While dealing with the Sec 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."

The CPIO relied on the following contentions of the third party:-

“2) The information has been sought by her in her personal and parochial interest and there is no any public interest (leave aside, larger public interest) is involved in the disclosure. Hence, the information cannot be disclosed.

4) All the information sought by Sunita Jain is my personal information which is protected from disclosure by my right to privacy. The right to privacy has been declared as fundamental right of citizen by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India through its Constitutional Bench of 9nine Judges) in WP No. 494/2012 in the matter of Justice K.S. Puttuswamy Vs Union of India and Ors. The fundamental right of a citizen overrides/supercedes any other rights provided by any Act/Statue which is contradictory.

8) It is a settled principle of law that if a relief cannot be g