HC junks wife’s RTI plea seeking husband’s salary details

Jodhpur: The principal seat of Rajasthan high court in Jodhpur dismissed a petition by a wife seeking disclosure of salary details of her husband, a police department employee, under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, holding that such information constituted "personal information", exempt from disclosure.In an order pronounced Thursday, Justice Kuldeep Mathur declined to interfere with the decision of the authorities, observing that there was no illegality in refusing to provide the information sought by the petitioner.
The petitioner, Kanta Kumawat, moved the court under Article 226 of the Constitution, seeking quashing of the order dated Oct 23, 2024, passed by the Rajasthan State Information Commission upholding the denial of the information. She also prayed for a direction to the superintendent of police, Bhilwara, to furnish the information sought in her RTI application on April 9, 2024, along with any other appropriate relief. The respondents in the case were the Rajasthan State Information Commission, the Superintendent of Police and Public Information Appellate Officer, Bhilwara, and the Additional Superintendent of Police and Public Information Officer, Bhilwara. The petitioner sought copies of pay slips and salary details of Om Prakash, her husband, from the respondent police department at Bhilwara, for the period January to March 2024. The request was rejected through orders dated June 26, 2024, and October 23, 2024, on the ground that the information related to a third party and was personal in nature, exempt under the RTI Act. The court observed that service-related information of an employee was primarily a matter between employer and employee and fell within the ambit of personal information, and that the disclosure of such details, in the absence of any overriding public interest, had no relationship with any public activity or public interest. Finding no infirmity in the action of the respondents, the court dismissed the writ petition as devoid of merit.