Dear Ravikumar Ji,
you are absolutely right in pointing out the lacuna. though ultimately one may get information, but it is delayed beyond being of any use, and sometimes even doctored by the time you get it.
all the same, at present there does not seem to be any provision whereby one can bypass the FAA
SIC/
CIC route.
but my experience is that rather than citing any reason from section 8 (1), the
PIO simply provides some irrelevant information, without actually providing the information requested, without citing any reason / pretext
and still better excuse, becoming more favored one recently, is that of file missing
you will find various discussions on these matters on this forum.