Bar & Bench: Bhopal: Thursday, May 31, 2018.
A Division
Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court earlier this month held that a wife is
entitled to know her husband’s salary for the purposes of ascertaining
maintenance.
The Bench of
Justices SK Seth and Nandita Dubey was dealing with a writ appeal filed by a
non-practicing advocate in a maintenance case. The appellant wife, who is
estranged from her husband, had filed an application under Section 91 of the
Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) along with her maintenance application.
The
application under the CrPC sought directions to her estranged husband, to
furnish copies of his pay slip so as to aid in the determination of reasonable
maintenance.
With a view
to determining the same, the wife had filed an RTI application asking for
details of his remuneration. The husband was a high-ranking employee of the
state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
The RTI
application, which was filed in 2005, was initially rejected and eventually
made its way to the Central Information Commission (CIC), which ordered the
Central Public Information Officer, BSNL to provide the details sought for.
The CIC order
was challenged by both the respondent husband and BSNL, on the ground that they
had not been heard. This petition was allowed and they were given an
opportunity to be heard, after which the CIC once again ordered that the
husband’s salary details be furnished.
This order
was once again challenged before a single judge of the Madhya Pradesh High
Court, which allowed the same.
The Division
Bench before which the appeal was argued, observed that there were two matters
to be considered. The first was whether Section 4(1)(b)(x), which obliges the
public authorities to display on public domain the monthly remuneration
received by each of its officers and employees, applies to the husband and
BSNL.
The second
question was whether the information sought for was exempt under Section
8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, which provides that if the information has no
relationship to any public activity and results in a violation of privacy, it
need not be provided.
The Bench
ultimately held that a wife was entitled to know her husband’s salary, and
disclosure of the same did not amount to a violation of his privacy.
“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.”
It had been
earlier argued by the appellant’s counsel KC Ghildiyal that the wife had been
receiving a monthly maintenance of Rs 7000, which was not commensurate to the
monthly salary of the husband, which alleged to be in excess of rupees two
lakh.
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