Case Law Details
Mr. Ankit Garg Vs CPIO, IBBI (Insolvency And Bankruptcy Board of India)
The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in the matter of Central Board of Secondary Education & Anr. vs. Aditya Bandopadhyay & Ors. (Civil Appeal No. 6454 of 2011), has, inter alia, held: “A public authority is “…not required to provide ‘advice’ or ‘opinion’ to an applicant, nor required to obtain and furnish any ‘opinion’ or ‘advice’ to an applicant. The reference to ‘opinion’ or ‘advice’ in the definition of ‘information’ in section 2(f) of the Act, only refers to such material available in the records of the public authority.
The Central Information Commission in its decision No. CIC/80/A/2006/000045, dated 21.04.2006 in the case relating to Dr. D.V. Rao, Dept. of Legal Affairs Vs. CPIO, Dept. of Legal Affairs, had held that ‘the RTI Act does not cast on the public authority any obligation to answer queries in which the petitioner attempts to elicit answer to his queries with prefixes as why, what when and whether. The petitioner’s right extends only to seeking information as defined in section 2(f) either by pointing the file document, paper or record etc., or by mentioning the type of information as may be available with the specified public authority.’
Full text of the IBBI Order is as follows
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CIC in Decision No. CIC/SG/A/2008/00347+00277/1554 dated 09.02.2009 rendered by the Former CIC Shailesh Gandhi has held that RTI Act no where prohibits use of queries like why, what, when, whether etc. RTI Act does not state that queries must be answered. “The PIO is right in accepting what is asked must be matter of record, but errs in imposing a new set of non-existing exemptions”. Sections 8 and 9 provide for exemption; creating exemptions other than is ultra vires the scope of the RTI Act and omission to furnish information also infringes fundamental right to know enshrined in Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India.