Information regarding Third Party Income Tax Assessment

[TKSMART]

Assessment of Mr. X was completed for Assessment Years 1994-95 and 1995-96. The same was reopened by Department after a lot of complains of manipulation against which Mr. X approached High Court by filing Special Civil Application(SCA) in the year around 1997. The case prolonged till 2009 and when the High Court expressed their unwillingness to pass order in his favour, Mr. X asked permission to withdraw his SCA which was granted. After this, it appears that Mr. X manipulated to ensure that his file does not reach the concerned department for his reassessment. His case has a direct bearing on my Income Tax Assessment for which Department has gone against me in the Tribunal.
Assessments are reopened only for addition. However, I have a feeling that Mr. X is ensuring to see that his assessment becomes time barred and his files after withdrawal of SCA never reach the concerned ITO. For this reason, I filed an RTI asking information whether reassessment orders have been passed for Mr. X and when. I also stated in my application that if the assessment is allowed to be lapsed, there will be substantial revenue loss to the Government.
The PIO in his first order u/s 7(1) stated that his office does not possess the information sought by me. I went in appeal against this order stating that Mr. X is assessed by the PIO and he should have provided the information or should have passed on my application to the ITO who has this information. Appellate Authority passed the order in my favour asking PIO to look at my application a fresh and provide the information within the provisions contained in the RTI Act.
Now I received the second order from the same PIO u/s 7(1) stating that the information sought by the applicant pertains to third party and relates to personal information and disclosure of the same has no relation to any public interest. Further, he has stated that the concerned third party has strongly opposed for disclosure of information which relates to personal information and hence he is rejecting my application keeping in view the provisions contained in section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.
I am at a loss to understand how my asking whether 'reassessment order is passed and when' will reveal any personal information supplied by Mr. X to Income Tax Department. I am not asking for any income details or copy of the Assessment order. And definitely there is a public interest to the fact that Govt. will loose a lot of revenue by a technical fault of not carrying out reassessment within prescribed time frame.
Can any one guide me as to what should be my reasons/ground of appeal and prayer/relief be sought and ground for the same.

[karira]

Sponsorer

File a first appeal against the present order of the PIO.

[TKSMART]

Yes I will. But what should be proper wordings for ground of appeal and prayer/relief?
Besides, I want to know whether the information I have asked can be classified as personal and confidential information of a third party? I am asking for the information regarding the action taken by the govt. against an assessee and not what assessee has disclosed to ITO.

[karira]

Grounds:

1. The PIO has incorrectly invoked Sec 11. Sec 11 only outlines a procedure to be followed by the PIO in case of certain categories of information. Sec 11 does not give any PIO the right to deny information. This is definitely not "third party" information. You only asked for whether the reassessment orders have been passed and the date of the order. None of this was ever submitted by the third party r can be treated by anyone as "confidential". The fact that a reassessment order was issued or not is a fact on record and so is the date.
Pick up more points from this judgment of the Delhi HC on "third party": Delhi HC judgment on Sec 11 and third party - Downloads - RTI INDIA

2. Even 8(1)(j) is not applicable here.
8(1)(j) states:
j. information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person.

Are the two bits of information you asked for "personal information" ? How will disclosure of a date invade the privacy of a person ?
Use the "interpretation" of Sec 8(1)(j) as given in this decision of the CIC: Details of passport issued to other persons are not under Section 8 (1) J of the RTI Act : CIC

3. In any case, under Sec 7(8), the PIO has to provide cogent and coherent reasons for denying information. Just quoting the section ad-verbatim (as is done in this case) is not reason enough. The PIO has to apply his mind and explain to the applicant as to how that particular exemption is applicable in the instant case. Cite CIC orders from Post # 5 of this thread:
https://www.rtiindia.org/forum/6521-...ts-misuse.html

The prayer will obviously be to direct the CPIO to provide the complete information you asked for in the RTI application.

I suggest that you leave out "larger public interest" at this stage.

[jetley]

1. PIO cannot simply say that he is rejecting your application keeping in view the provisions contained in section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. He is duty bound to give you the details of reasoning process through which he arrived at this decision, i.e. how he derived that the said section was applicable in your case.

2. You need to specify how the concerned information is relevant to you and how public interest is involved in its disclosure (say, through malpractice / violation of I.T. laws). In the absence of such specification from your side, the PIO may not be wrong, and may get away by classifying it as personal, having no bearing on any public activity.

3. There is nothing like confidential information as far as RTI is concerned (Read sec. 22 and other relevant sections of the RTI Act).

4. 3rd party does not have veto over disclosure of information. Section 11 is only a procedural section, it cannot be invoked to reject information.