In a recent CIC decision
http://www.rti.india.gov.in/cic_decisions/CIC_WB_A_2009_000653_M_41446.pdf
my friend <smile> Mr Habibullah had this to say about Mr Tarun Kumar (then CPIO now FAA of CIC)
"Although CPIO has indeed advised appellant Shri Shekhar Singh to seek this information from the High Court or Supreme Court, he has so done without further clarifying that this information is not for the CPIO of the Central Information Commission to give, for the reasons argued before us in second appeal. CPIO can then be held to have misread the law ..."
Note here that Mr Habibullah is admonishing his present FAA for having "misread the law".
Mr Tarun Kumar was exactly carrying out the directions of IC A.N.Tiwari in this landmark decision "CIC/AT/C/2008/00335" at http://www.rti.india.gov.in/cic_decisions/AT-27022009-01.pdf
Unfortunately there is nobody to defend the PIOs and FAAs of
the CIC from the 'haraamis' who infest the place and bring his
exemplary decision to Mr Habibullah's notice.
Did Mr Habibullah actually want to say that it is Mr Tiwari who is misreading the law ?? Are there 2 sets of rules for Information seekers in RTI - ordinary citizens must face Mr Tiwari but well connected and well financed 'haramis' (a common Urdu/Hindustani word which Mr Habibullah inexplicably considers to be an abuse) can avail Mr Habibullah's facilitations to get court judgements free of cost ??
Here are the key paras of ANT's decision, Mr Habibullah would do well to read it and explain why there are different strokes for different folks at the CIC.
"6. Another point raised by the appellant/complainant is that CPIO, in calling upon the appellant to collect the court orders from the respective courts or from the courts' websites, somehow violated the provisions of the RTI Act.
7. I'm afraid this surmise is equally incorrect. In the scheme of the RTI Act, a document to be liable for disclosure ought to be `held' by a public authority, which in the first place was responsible for its creation/issue. Any other public authority subsequently coming to possess that information incidentally, or on account of the fact that the subsequent public authority was party to a proceeding such as a court matter, could not make that latter public authority the original
holder of the information within the meaning of Section 2(j) of the RTI Act. This scheme is perfectly logical because the disclosability of the information is a function which can be performed only by the original holder of the information and not the others who come to hold that information incidentally. The court order is always in the public domain, in the sense, that it can be taken from the Court Registry on payment of the fee prescribed by the Court. No party can claim that another public authority, who for some reasons happen to possess a
certain court order, must give copies to an applicant only because that request is made under the RTI Act. If this is allowed, every applicant would like to get copies of the Court orders from the parties to the Court case ⎯ who might also be a public authority ⎯ rather than go through the process of obtaining the same
copy from the Court Registry. If allowed, it will amount to abuse of the RTI Act, and will also be offensive to the systems laid-down by the Courts.
8. This particular case is only one among several such matters which are reaching the Commission. The petitioners use the RTI route to access information held by a public authority which might have originated from another public authority. So long as this information is an open information, disclosure of this from any point should not really matter. But the matter becomes slightly complicated when the originator of the information wishes to treat that information as confidential or secret. In such a situation, for the respondents to
disclose this information to an applicant without reference to the originator of the information may jeopardize the interest of the originator. In my view, all such matters should be examined within the purview of Section 11(1) of the RTI Act for the originator of the information becomes a third-party in the connect of an admittedly confidential information which has reached the hands of the public
authority from whom the information is sought.
9. Regardless of the orders of the Appellate Authority, it would be, therefore,entirely incorrect to fault the CPIO for directing the appellant to obtain the court related order from the source where such orders are kept, i.e. the Court Registry. There is absolutely no reason why a party to a court proceeding should be obligated to disclose the order of the court to other applicants, especially when
the option to obtain that order from the Court Registry itself is always open."
Sarbajit
--- In rti_india@yahoogroups.com, Col NR Kurup <colnrkurup@...> wrote:
>
> There is something called Court of records. The Supreme Court and all
> High Courts are Court of records. Decisions of court of records are as
> good as rule and can be quotted as precedent or citation. The CIC and
> SICs are neither courts nor court of records. I do not give much value
> to their decisions except for quotting to them. If CIC or SICs have
> given certain decision this may be quotted as a precedcent while
> argfuing a case before the same court. Though nothing stops them from
> disowning their earlier decision of different IC the appellant may
> try. One find certain SICs like my friend SIC, Kerala not caring
> when the appellant quote CICs decisions. I have a case where the SIC,
> Kerala telling that he is independent and not bound to abide by CICs
> decision.
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