Wife can seek information on husband's income under the RTI Act, rules CIC [Read Order]

In an order passed earlier this month, the Central Information Commission (CIC) ruled in favour of a woman who sought information regarding her husband's income tax returns under the Right to Information (RTI) Act (Rahmat Bano v. CPIO, Income Tax). .The woman had made the RTI application in November 28, 2018 seeking information on her husband's income tax returns for the period 2017-2018. .The Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) declined to give the requested information, prompting the woman to file an appeal. A second appeal was later filed before the CIC..Appearing for the CPIO, counsel Ramji Lal Meena submitted that the information sought by the woman was personal information which cannot be disclosed to a third party under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. He added that the husband had denied consent to provide such information to his wife as well. .Reliance was placed on the Supreme Court's ruling in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande vs. Central Information Commission & ors, which ruled that income tax returns are in the nature of personal information exempted from the RTI Act's purview under Section 8..The CIC, however, took note that a distinction was made by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Smt. Sunita Jain vs. Pawan Kumar Jain and others and Smt. Sunita Jain vs. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and others, where a wife had sought the salary details of her husband from her employer. .In the said case, the High Court ruled that the wife was entitled to know what remuneration her husband was getting, adding that the Girish Ramchandra Deshpande ruling was not applicable. .An allied ruling was passed by the Bombay High Court in Rajesh Ramachandra Kidile vs. Maharashtra SIC and Ors, where the Court ruled that a husband's salary details would no longer be confined to the category of personal information when the issue involved was maintenance. .In view of these rulings, the CIC has ruled that the wife in this case was entitled to access information regarding her husband's net taxable income or gross income. The ruling passed by Information Commissioner Neeraj Kumar Gupta reads:."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 added that no other personal information of the third party need not to be disclosed, save for the above mentioned details. .Rajak K Haidar appeared as counsel for the women-appellant..Read the order: