Times of India: New delhi: Saturday, February 07, 2015.
Your property
details, investments and assets can be accessed by your spouse under the Right
to Information Act (RTI).
The Central
Information Commission (CIC) passed the judgment on Friday while dealing with
the case of an applicant an estranged wife and an alleged victim of domestic
violence.
Overruling
arguments that income details of a person is "personal information",
it directed the Delhi Transco, where her husband works, to provide his relevant
details to her as it constituted her right to life. So far such information has
been considered exempt under the RTI Act and treated as private or third party
information.
In this
particular case, the applicant had sought to know the details of his husband's
property, including that given in dowry, and action taken against him for
attempting to commit bigamy and abandoning her without any financial support.
Ruling that
the larger public interest overrides exemption under privacy of an individual,
information commissioner M Shridhar Acharyulu said that the public information
officer in Delhi Transco could not reject the request for such information if
filed by the woman because the protection of privacy is overridden by the huge
public interest in the duty of a government official to provide maintenance to
his wife and children and not indulge in domestic violence. The commission
ordered the firm to furnish the man's income details within 48 hours.
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