General power of attorney should be disclosed under RTI
CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
(Room No.315, BWing, August Kranti Bhawan, Bhikaji Cama Place, New Delhi 110 066)
File No.CIC/DS/A/2013/001968SA
(Sh.Manish Bansal Vs. Delhi Archives, GNCTD)
Shri Manish Bansal
Versus
Delhi Archives
GNCTD, Delhi
Date of decision : 01-09-2014
Information Commissioner :
Prof. M. Sridhar Acharyulu
(Madabhushi Sridhar)
Summary: GPA is a public document because the grantee has to use it to convince any
prospective purchaser and it is also in the interest of that prospective purchaser to verify the
veracity of the documents including GPA before finalizing the deal. Because the purpose of
GPA is to authorize another person to deal with the others i.e., to lease out, sale or mortgage
etc, it is an open document and after being registered it is put in public domain, and when
transferred to Delhi Archives, it continued to be in public domain.
The RTI Act made it obligatory to disclose any document which is held by public authority unless
exemptions as mentioned in Section 8 are attracted. Assuming that Section 57 Registration Act
1908 authorizes them to deny the access to GPA, which the officers from SubRegistrar office are
regularly raising as defence, the Commission would like to reiterate that as per section 22 of Right
to Information Act 2005, the 156 year old law has to yield to 2005 law which Parliament wanted to
override the other laws. The Commission recommends the Respondent Public Authority to inform
all the PIOs and officers registering the transactions on landed property to abide by the RTI Act
and not to quote obsolete British relic Registration Act, 1908. As the ageold maxim says
ignorance of law is no excuse, the respondent authority cannot plead ignorance of this law any
more as nine years passed after RTI Act came into existence. Any effort to quote British law to
deny the copy of GPA or any other document which has to be given under RTI Act will be
considered as clever ploy to deny the information and the Commission warns the public authority
that this also will amount to violation of RTI Act attracting the penalties under Section 20 RTI Act.
The office of PIO should desist from using the archaic law and First Appellate Authority cannot
reject first appeals on this ground.
https://www.lawweb.in/2014/11/general-power-of-attorney-should-be.html
