Wife
of Government Employee has the right to know the salary of Husband under RTI –
Applicable to Husband of Government Employee also – Central Information
Commission (CIC)
Wives of government servants have a “right” to know salary particulars of their husbands
and these details should also be made public by their offices as mandated under
suo-moto disclosure clause of the RTI Act, the Central information Commission
has held.
Information Commissioner M Sridhar
Acharyulu said every spouse has a right to information about the salary
particulars of the other especially for the purpose of maintenance.
“More so, wife has a right to know
the salary particulars of the husband, who is an employee of the public
authority,” he said.
The commissioner further said that the
details about a government employee’s salary is no third party information and
these have to be voluntarily disclosed under Section 4(1)(b)(x) of the RTI Act.
He said the salary paid to the
public authority is sourced from the tax paid by the people in general and it
has to be disclosed mandatorily under the RTI section.
“The information about the salary of
employee or an officer of the same public authority cannot be considered as a
third party information… Public authorities cannot reject such RTI applications
about salary under the pretext of the third party information,” he held.
Acharyulu warned the Home Department
of Delhi government that such denial of information will be wrongful and could
incur penalty. The warning was in context of an application filed by Jyoti
Seherawat seeking salary slip of her husband who is employed at the Home
(General) department.
The information was denied as her
husband gave in written to the department that such an information should not
be provided to anyone.
Source : PTI
