BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court has issued guidelines to be followed by the Public Information Officer or Central Public Information Officer of the Income Tax Department on handling applications filed by husbands and wives under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, seeking income-tax returns or financial records of their spouses, in connection with maintenance proceedings.
Justice Suraj Govindaraj laid down the guidelines on February 21 while partly allowing the petition filed by the Income Tax Officer and Central Public Information Officer of the Income Tax Department, questioning the order dated April 12, 2019, passed by the Central Information Commission.
While processing the application, personal information including under Sections 8(1)(e), 8(1)(j) and 11, the Public Information Officer should inform the applicant that the appropriate mechanism for obtaining income tax returns in the context of maintenance proceedings is through the competent court, and not through RTI Act.
Further, the officer should provide the applicant with the name, designation and address of the Nodal Officer designated to receive and comply with judicial directions.
Where the application discloses that the applicant is a spouse seeking information in connection with maintenance proceedings, the officer should specifically advise the applicant to file an appropriate application before the competent court.
The court clarified that these guidelines are gender-neutral. The pronouns used in the guidelines are only for convenience, and should be construed to include all genders, it said.
Suo motu powers of court
The high court said the competent court may, even in the absence of a formal application by the applicant spouse, exercise its suo motu powers to summon IT returns and financial records from the IT Department, where the court considers the determination of fair and just maintenance is not possible without such records. In such cases, court should record reasons for exercising suo motu powers, and give the assessee-spouse an opportunity to be heard before issuing the production order, the high court added.