Whispers Forum

The appellant claimed double deduction of income tax in which only one deducted amount has been refunded. He submitted to the CIC that neither complete desired information has been provided to him nor the deduction of taxes in Form 16A/ 26AS statement for the FY 2022-23 was reflected by the respondent (Railways) till date. He further contended that the PIOs never took the pain to present the case before the CIC on its own rather they sent their representatives to plead cases which is not in the spirit of the RTI Act. On query from the CIC, the respondent admitted the error shown in the Form 16 A by not showing the deducted tax amount in the appellant’s 26 AS statement of F.Y. 2022-23. She stated that their Chartered Accountant has been asked to reconcile the statement, and volunteered to redress the grievance of the appellant thereafter. The CIC concluded that the reply is vague and evasive. The PIO is expected to have applied his mind and should have facilitated relevant information as sought by the Appellant by invoking Section 5(4) or Section 6(3) of the RTI Act from the concerned department in addressing the issue raised by the appellant. Instead of doing the needful, the PIO washed their hands off by keeping the complaint of the appellant pending till date which ought to have been redressed by reconciling the account at the stage of PIO reply itself. The CIC directed to revisit the contents of the RTI Application to provide relevant information, free of cost, within four weeks. Under Section 19(8) of the RTI Act, the CIC directed to investigate this matter through Senior Divisional Officer other than Finance and Accounts. In doing so, the Appellant be associated in the investigation, and if lapse is found in the matter, the Respondent Public Authority is to fix responsibility on delinquents. Report of the inquiry along with supporting documents shall be shared with the appellant, free of cost, and also uploaded on the link provided in the Commission’s hearing notice within 8 weeks from the date of receipt of this order.
Comments
Deduction of income tax is done from the seeded PAN card number of the assessee with an auto fetched systems where there is little chances of error. Perhaps, the mistake caused coupled with vague reply and absence of any remedial action led to such a strong order.
Citation: Ashok Kumar Sharma v. Office of the Divisional Railway Manager, North Western Railway, CIC/NWRLY/A/2024/100624; Date of Decision: 30.04.2025
Dr Anuradha Verma (dranuradhaverma@yahoo.co.in) is a RTI Consultant currently working with IIM Vishakhapatnam. She has co-authored the books PIO’s Guide to RTI and Right to Information – Law and Practice. Her weekly article is being published since 2008 on this site. She offers consultancy on RTI matters and third party audit to individuals / organisations. Her other articles can be read at the website of RTI Foundation at the link https://www.rtifoundationofindia.com

Is civil service any longer a matter of pride? If a chief minister can call the highest ranking civil servant to his official residence and surround him with “goondas” (the SC had used the term. Besides, our best legislation is Anti-Goonda Act!) and beat him and the judiciary smiling at the fun going on, is civil service left with the dignity of a “service” at all? Civil servants make sacrifices in public service that is best among all other wings, because they put their neck on the chopping block for a pittance called salary, suffer politicians and ire of the judiciary too.
M L Gupta

Inclusion of Asaduddin Owaisi in one of the Indian delegations that is travelling abroad to brief countries about Operation Sindoor is not surprising. Owaisi has been most vocal in criticising the government on many issues including Waqf Amendment Bill. But he stood firmly with the government during Operation Sindoor and launched all-out attack on Pakistan after the ghastly Pahalgam terror attack. A section of people also believe that he is BJP's B-team since his party cuts Muslim votes, which ultimately benefits BJP. However, there can be differing opinions about the outspoken AIMIM chief.
Yogesh Mathur

The applicant sought for information from Bank of Baroda about freezing of his Saving account and related information. The PIO denied the information claiming it as exempt from disclosure under section 24 of the Right to Information Act and harped on the exempt status of Anti-Corruption Bureau of the State of Gujarat as per relevant notification during personal hearing before the CIC. The CIC took grave exception to the absurd and grossly misleading reply and observed that the Bank of Baroda has cited Section 24 of the RTI Act as though it is an exempted organization and the same is unacceptable and is considered as a grave violation of the provisions of the RTI Act without any reasonable cause. A notice was issued to the then PIO why action should not be initiated against him under Section 20 of the RTI Act for providing a grossly wrong and misleading reply. The CIC further observed that since the RTI queries specifically sought for information related to freezing of his bank account, which is very much the domain of the bank in terms of being the concerned record holder and not CBI and even if the record holder was solely CBI, then there should have been a transfer of the RTI Application as per Section 6(3) of the RTI Act. There is nothing contained in the RTI Act that empowers the PIO of the Respondent bank to claim exemption on behalf of CBI and even if that were the case, the PIO did not even bother to specify the same in his reply. A notice was also issued to the PIO to explain as to why the reply of the then PIO was being mindlessly endorsed even at this stage, impliedly sharing the onus of having provided the wrong & misleading reply. The CIC directed the PIO to now provide a revised point-wise reply to the instant RTI Application.
Comments
It is a classic case which indicates ignorance of the PIO about the provisions of the RTI Act. All readers are strongly advised to read these case laws to learn about the common mistakes which may render them liable for penalty.
Citation: Nilesh R Gupta v. Bank of Baroda, CIC/BKOBD/A/2024/620207; Date of Decision: 06.03.2025
Dr Anuradha Verma (dranuradhaverma@yahoo.co.in) is a RTI Consultant currently working with IIM Vishakhapatnam. She has co-authored the books PIO’s Guide to RTI and Right to Information – Law and Practice. Her weekly article is being published since 2008 on this site. She offers consultancy on RTI matters and third party audit to individuals / organisations. Her other articles can be read at the website of RTI Foundation at the link https://www.rtifoundationofindia.com

The conspiracy of the gangs of traitors and deep state operators to target India, especially the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, by engineering the Pahalgam incident has proved rather too costly for them. They have destroyed Donald Trump and hurt American interests for the rest of his term as POTUS. They have harmed Xi Jinping irreparably. They have ruined Erdogan terribly which they had not imagined. The sheer scale of damage to these people and interests of their countries is so much that they will take months to assess. It has benefited India as the people have seen the reality of foreign powers whose policy is that “War Is Trade”. Only Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s graph has risen further.
M L Gupta