Live Law:
Mumbai: Friday, October 26, 2018.
The
Bombay High Court has held that information relating to salary details of the
husband cannot be disclosed in an RTI application filed by wife’s lawyer.
The
lawyer of the wife, who had filed maintenance case against her husband who is
an engineer working in a government department, had applied under the Right to
Information Act seeking details of salary received by him. The state information
commission had held that such information sought can be disclosed. The husband
had challenged this order before the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court.
Perusing
the RTI application filed by the lawyer, Justice SB Shukre observed that the
application has been filed in his own capacity by the advocate and not on
behalf of his client. The court also added that the information contained in
the salary slips would make the salary slips as having the characteristic of
personal nature.
It
also added that remittances made to the Income Tax Department towards discharge
of tax liability or to the bank towards discharge of loan liability would
constitute the personal information and would encroach upon the privacy of the
person. The court also noted that, in this case, information sought is not just
regarding mere gross salary, but also the details of the salary, such as
amounts relating to gross salary, take home salary and also all the deductions
from the gross salary.
However,
the court also observed that in a litigation, wherein the issue involved is of
maintenance of wife, the information relating to salary details no longer
remains confined to the category of personal information of the husband alone
and it assumes the characteristic of personal information concerning both
husband and wife, which is available with the husband and hence accessible by
the wife.
“This
is all the more so when the information seeker is a person who is totally
stranger in blood or marital relationship to the person whose information he
wants to lay his hands on. It would have been a different matter, had the
information been sought by the wife of the petitioner in order to support her
contention in a litigation, which she has filed against her husband,” the judge
said while setting aside the commission’s order.
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