The central information commission considering an appeal from a woman held that the wife may seek information related to the husband’s income under the Right to Information act.
The initial plea was rejected by the central public information officer (CPIO) and the first appeal was also disposed off which led to the second appeal before the CIC. The appellant sought her husband’s income tax returns for year 2017-2018 through an RTI application. The appellant submitted that she was entitled to get the information under the RTI act however the respondent contended that such information related to a person’s income was private in nature and cannot be disclosed to a third person under the RTI act. The respondent further submitted that the husband also denied disclosure4 of such information to the appellant.
The CIC after hearing both sides placed reliance on Supreme Court judgment in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande vs. Central Information Commission & ors. In which it was held that details in a person’s income tax return were personal and were exempted from disclosure under section 8 of the RTI act however further noting the distinctions took in Madhya Pradesh high court case of Smt. Sunita Jain vs. Pawan Kumar Jain and others where the court held that the wife was entitled to know about the remuneration of her husband. The CIC further referred to a Bombay high court judgment in the case of Rajesh Ramachandra Kindle vs. Maharashtra SIC and Ors where the court also held that wife was as entitled to know the information related to the husband’s salary and such information was no longer personal to the just the husband.
The information commissioner Neeraj Kumar Gupta thus favored the appellant’s side and said “Taking into consideration the aforementioned analysis and the judgments of the Higher Courts, the Commission directs the respondent to inform the appellant about the generic details of the net taxable income/gross income of her husband held and available with the Public Authority for the period 2017-2018, within a period of 15 working days from the date of receipt of this order.” The commissioner disposing of the plea also said that no other personal information of a third party needed to be disclosed to the appellant.
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