Live Law: New Delhi: Wednesday,
April 19, 2017.
The Central
Information Commission (CIC) has upheld an order rejecting an RTI application
seeking details of income tax returns of a person on the ground that the
disclosure would cause unwarranted invasion to the privacy of the assessee.
Information
Commissioner Bimal Julka was considering an appeal against an order of first
appellate authority (FAA) which had upheld the denial of details of income tax
returns of D Ramachandra Rao, sought by D Nagendra Prasad, the applicant.
He had sought
information on nine points regarding income tax on capital gain earned by one
Ramachandra Rao by selling land and house and issues related thereto.The FAA
had held that the information was covered under Section 8(1) (e) of the RTI
Act, 2005 and the same could not be disclosed unless larger public interest
warrants such disclosure.
The
commission referred to decisions of Delhi and Bombay high courts in this
regard. The Delhi High Court in Naresh Kumar Trehan vs Rakesh Kumar Gupta had held
that information relating to individual assessee could not be disclosed, unless
the same was justified “in the larger public interest”.
In Shailesh
Gandhi vs CIC, the Bombay High Court had observed: “Returns can be no stretch
of imagination be said to be a public activity, but is an obligation which a
citizen owes to the state viz. to pay his taxes and since the said information
is held by the Income Tax Department in a fiduciary capacity, the same cannot
be directed to be revealed unless the prerequisites for the same are
satisfied.”
In the light
of these dictums, the commission refused to interfere with the decision of the
FAA. The commission also observed that the applicant was not able to establish
the larger public interest in disclosure which outweighs the harm to the
protected interests.