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Synopsis

Justice Yashwant Varma of the Delhi High Court on Thursday put a stay on the Central Information Commission (CIC) order directing the Income Tax (IT) department to provide information on the PM Cares Fund and issued notice to the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO)/Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax (Headquarter).

Section 80G of the IT Act was used to approve the PM Cares Fund which enables taxpayers to deduct various contributions made as donations to it.

The IT department challenged the CIC's decision in relation to a Right to Information (RTI) Act application filed by Mumbai-based activist Girish Mittal.

According to the plea, the information requested relates to a third party (the PM Cares Fund), which is a registered trust, and thus the CIC could not have issued the order without first allowing the Fund to be heard.

It claimed that the CIC ignored the statutory bar contained in Section 138(l)(b) of the Income Tax Act when issuing the order and this provision allows the Principal Chief Commissioner, Chief Commissioner, or Principal Commissioner to decide whether information about any taxpayer should be disclosed in the public interest or not.

The plea further stated that there is also a further bar that states that the Principal Chief Commissioner, Chief Commissioner, or Principal Commissioner’s decision will be final and shall not be called into question in any court of law.

Counsel appearing for Mittal contended that the IT department had very swiftly granted an exemption to the PM Cares Fund.

It was further contended that the Fund cannot claim privacy because it is owned and controlled by the government.

Mittal's application, filed in May 2020, sought information about the tax exemption granted to the PM Cares Fund.

He had requested copies of all documents submitted by the PM Cares Fund in its exemption application, as well as copies of file notings approving the exemption.

He had also requested a list of all exemption applications filed from April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020, as well as information on those that were denied.

On June 15, 2020, the CPIO/Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax (Headquarter) denied the information, stating that the information sought was personal, unrelated to any public activity or interest, and would result in an unnecessary intrusion of an individual's privacy.

Mittal had challenged the order to the First Appellate Authority (FAA), which affirmed the rejection of the application on August 19, 2020, ruling that the PM CARES Fund does not fall under the purview of the RTI Act because it is not a public authority as defined in Section 29(h) of the Act.

This order was then challenged before the CIC, and on April 27, 2022, it ordered the CPIO to provide information on the documents submitted by the Fund with its exemption application, as well as copies of file notings approving.

Although, the CIC denied the request for information on exemption applications as well as on details on applications submitted between April 2019 and March 2020.

The CIC had observed that the issue of Section 2(h) of the RTI Act was unnecessarily dragged into the case because Mittal filed the RTI application with a public authority rather than the PM Cares Fund.

Case Title: CPIO/DY. COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX HQ EXEMPTION, NEW DELHI v. GIRISH MITTAL