Right
to Information Act can act as an important tool for an ordinary citizen, who
want to move to take action against the department or organization in a legal
forum or court to prove an illegal act of public authorities even if the public
information officer gives half-baked information or even if they hide the
information by giving an illogical reason. Through this blog, I am going to share
the incidence, where an ordinary citizen able to get admissible evidence
against the PSU Bank using RTI as a tool to prove how ruthless was the
bank in dealing with the grievance of its client (savings bank account holder).
Money
from Saving Account of an illiterate old man from a remote village was
fraudulently withdrawn by somebody else that too continuously for a period of
one and a half years. Then upon making a complaint to the higher authorities, the
fraudulently withdrawn money was refunded to the old man’s account. However, no
explanation was given to him (the account holder) about what happened to his
money during that period.
Upon
asking that, who misappropriated his money? The bank refused to answer.
Therefore, the old man filed an application under Right to Information Act,
2005 seeking the following information: - “What action has the bank taken
against the person who was responsible for letting my money withdrawn by
somebody else? Give the name and designation of the person who is responsible
for this?”
Reply
from the Central Public Information Officer
The
public information dodged the question by observing that “Information
sought for contains personal information of an individual and are exempted
under section 8(1) (j) of the RTI Act, 2005. The Honourable Supreme Court of
India in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v Central Information Commissioner
& Ors, held that “we are in agreement with CIC and courts below that
details called for by the petitioners i.e, copies of all memos issued to third
party respondent, show cause notices ad orders of censure/punishment etc. are
qualified to be personal information as defined in clause (j) of the RTI Act.
The performance of an employee/officer in an organization is primarily a matter
between employee and the employer and normally those aspects are governed by
service rules which fall under the expression “personal information” the
disclosure of which has no relationship of any public activity or public
interest. On the other hand, the disclosure of which would cause unwarranted
invasion of privacy of that individual.
The
CIC in the matter between Mr.Sanga Yashodhara vs CPIO, Bank of Maharashtra dated
26.04.2016 held that name, father’s name, date of birth, caste, residential
address is personal information and exempt from disclosure under Section
8(1)(j) of the RTI Act,2005”.
First
Appeal from the Account Holder
Aggrieved by
this observation, the old man filed the first appeal before the First Appellate
Authority by taking the following two grounds:-
“Firstly,
here in my case, my money, which was under the custody of your bank through
savings account was misappropriated by somebody else without my knowledge. And
at any given situation it cannot happen without knowledge or collusion of
employees of the bank since I do not have an ATM or cheque book or internet
banking facility. If that is the
reality, then how come it is not my right to know about what action was taken against the person who was responsible for the misappropriation of my money?
Besides this, your bank is not giving me interest and compensation for the delay in
refunding the said amount to me? In such a situation I am within my right to
know this information. That is here, I am directly affected by the activity of that
person, which is not only civil but prima facie criminal offense as well. I was
made to run pillar to post for many days for around 1.5 years in
spite of my old age (more than 65 years old) and physical disability.
Therefore, I was directly affected by the deeds of the said person, your bank is
bound to give information to me.
Secondly,
without agreeing to CPIO’s views about applicability of Sanga Yashodhara vs
CPIO, Bank of Maharashtra dated 26.04.2016 for above said reasons, for
sake of argument even if I agree that this case applies to my query, I would like to point out that my query
contains two separate part in it:-
First
part seeks only “what actions taken”. Only the second part of that question
seeks “name, the designation”. Therefore, CPIO could have at least supplied that
information, which would have helped me in filing case against your bank at
appropriate legal forum for denying lawful interest amount and compensation.
Therefore, Section 8 (1) (j) of the RTI Act would not apply to the first part of
the Query No.1.
To
sum up, I have every right to know who has violated my privacy and what action
has been taken against the person who violated my privacy, not only privacy, my
right to life (Article 21 of the Indian Constitution) was jeopardized due to
the acts & omission of that person, since I could not able to withdraw my
money for one and a half long period”.
Reply
from First Appellate Authority
For this, the
First Appellate Authority disposed of the appeal by observing that “Action
taken on employee and name of the employee is their personal information and
disclosure of such information to the third party is exempted under RTI Act, 2005,
as disclosure of such information will bring social/professional stigma in the
life of employee”.
Although this is
not a proper justification for providing information to the applicant, at least
they could have disclosed information about the first part of the query; what
action taken against the officers without naming them. If this issue would have
been went to CIC, I am sure applicant could have acquired that information at
the least the first part.
Chose
not to file Second Appeal because mission accomplished
However, he
chose not to file the second appeal before the Central Information Commission for
two reasons:
Firstly, by
refusing to give information about the name and designation of the person, the bank
has implied agreed to the fact that some of its official was involved in
fraudulent withdrawal of money from the savings account.
Secondly, the
account holder wanted to show that the Bank in spite of doing a greatest
disservice to the account holder by letting the third person takes his money, made
him (the account holder) to run pillar to post to know the information as to
what happened to his money and in fact, the bank is still refusing to divulge any
details regarding that. Therefore, the old man by keeping RTI replies as an
evidence, set to prove that how the Bank is operating in a non-transparent
manner and making the customer suffer without paying him any interest and
compensation for the wrongdoing of its officers. Therefore, the old man’s mission of taking confession statement from the bank is complete and now he is equipped
himself with this evidence (along with other evidence already in his
possession) is preparing to move to the District Consumer Forum to seek
exemplary compensation from the concerned bank. I am 100% sure that the poor
old man will get justice as per the rule of law.
#RTI #Consumer #evidence #bank #PSUbank #PSU #Righttoinformation
#RTI #Consumer #evidence #bank #PSUbank #PSU #Righttoinformation
