Central Information Commission (CIC) denied family pension details to a person who had not submitted the death certificate of his late mother before the bank.
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In an interesting case, the Central Information Commission (CIC) denied family pension details to a person who had not submitted the death certificate of his late mother before the bank. The central panel said that the required information can be provided if he submits the death certificate of the deceased account holder.
The appellant, Sura Prasad Pati, had filed an application under the Right to Information Act 2005 before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of Punjab National Bank, Bhubaneshwar (erstwhile Union Bank of India). In the application, he sought details of the family pension credited and drawn from the savings account of his late mother. He also sought the details of the family pension credited and cash drawn from the account between January 2015 and December 2017.
The CPIO denied the information on the ground that the “information held with the bank relates to the disclosure of 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.”
Not happy with the reply of CPIO, the appellant filed another appeal before the First Appellate Authority (FAA), which disposed of the appeal. The appellant then filed his second appeal before the CIC, seeking a direction to the CPIO to provide him with complete information.
Before the CIC, the CPIO said that the appellant had not provided the death certificate of the pension account holder. Therefore they couldn’t provide the requisite information. The central panel also upheld this reason for denying the required information to the appellant.
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What CIC said
“The Commission after adverting to the facts and circumstances of the case, hearing the respondent and perusal of records, observed that the appellant was son of family pension holder Smt. Rebati Pati, hence, was entitled to the information sought by him. However, in compliance of the FAA’s order, the appellant had not provided the death certificate of account holder. In case he completes the formalities, the information may be provided to him within 04 weeks from date of receipt of requisite documents. With these observations and directions, the appeal is disposed of,” the CIC said in its order dated November 1, 2022.
