Judgement Analysis- Rahmat Bano v CPIO, O/o Income Tax

Profile of the Author: Gunjan Agarwal is pursuing LLB (3 years) course from Jaipur National University, having a keen interest in Constitutional laws, IPR laws and socio-legal contemporary issues.

FACTS OF THE CASE

• The appellant Rahmat Bano 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, seeking information photocopies of income-tax returns filed by her husband Sh. Mohammed Rafique for the period 2017 to 2018.
• The CPIO did not provide the requested information, therefore the appellant filed the first appeal dated 14.01.2019 requesting that the information should be provided to her. The first appellate authority was ordered on 25.01.2019 and disposed of her first appeal. She 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 her and requested the Commission to direct the respondent to provide complete and correct information.
• the appellant submitted that no information has been provided to the appellant by the respondent on her RTI application dated 28.11.2018. The representative of the appellant stated that she is entitled to get this information under the RTI Act.

OBSERVATION BY COURT

• The Commission, after hearing the submissions of both the parties and after perusal of records, observes that the information sought by the appellant regarding copies of income tax returns of her husband, etc. is personal information of the 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:
• "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. The present case is distinguishable from the case of Girish Ramchandra Deshpande and therefore the law laid down by their Lordships in the case of Girish Ramchandra Deshpande is not applicable in the present case.
• The commission also referred the judgement of the Hon’ble High Court of Bombay (Nagpur Bench) in the matter of Rajesh Ramachandra Kidile vs. Maharashtra SIC and Ors, which states that, concerning the maintenance of wife, salary details are no longer ‘personal information’ to the husband. “In a litigation, where the issue involved is of maintenance of wife, the information relating to the salary details no longer remain confined to the category of personal information concerning both husband and wife, which is available with the husband hence accessible by the wife.” The commission while allowed the wife to know the income of her husband also directed not to disclose other information with the appellant except the “net taxable income/gross income”. “The details/copy of income tax returns and other personal information of the third party need not be disclosed to the appellant”

Analysis

The case revolves around the exception mentioned in the RTI Act under Sec 8 clause (j) which states that personal information cannot be provided to a third person. In the present case while passing the order court observed that the information seeker is the wife who has the right to know about the income of the husband. Such issues arise in the case of maintenance where the wife seeks to know the actual income of husband so that he cannot avoid his responsibility of paying maintenance. Also, being the spouse of husband, it is right to wife to know how much is her husband earning. There is no reason for preventing the wife from obtaining such information.

The point to be noted here is that the commission only allowed the wife to know the income of her husband but did not allow her to obtain the income tax returns details. This solved twin purpose, first the wife will receive the information she desired and secondly the provision under RTI Act will also be preserved as to non-availability of personal information under the RTI Act.

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