The Central Information Commission has directed Petroleum Ministry to disclose expenses incurred on renovation of offices and residence of Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and if any limit on expenses was breached.

The Commission did not agree with the Ministry officials that the collection of information would disproportionately divert their resources, noting that maintenance of accounts is computerised, and said such replies obstruct furnishing of information under the RTI Act, thereby causing harassment to the citizen.

Activist Subhash Agrawal approached the Ministry seeking to know complete information on type of government accommodation, expenses made on renovation and equipment at the residence and office of Pradhan. He also sought file notings to know whether any public sector undertaking was roped in to fund the renovation functions at his office and residence.

"The CPIO responded on August 27, 2015 and with reference to points No one to five, seeking the information summed up above, stated that the requisite information, as sought, was not available in the Ministry and its compilation from various files would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority under Section 7(9) of the RTI Act, 2005," Information Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal noted.

"We have considered the records and the submissions of both the parties and note that Section 7 (9) does not provide for denial of information. This provision states: 'An information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question.' However, the CPIO cited this provision to deny the information and his decision was upheld by the FAA," Sabharwal said.

He noted that CPIO did not follow provisions of the RTI Act to transfer the application to concerned officers. "Moreover, expenses in areas, where specific monetary limits are laid down in respect of the expenditure that can be incurred, are usually processed on a single file so that the progressive expenditure on the item in question is available at any given time for monitoring vis a vis the permissible limit."However, according to the representative of the respondents, the expenses are processed on the files of different dealing hands," he said.

Directing the disclosure of records sought by Agrawal, he said such replies obstruct furnishing of information under the RTI Act, thereby causing harassment to the citizen seeking information, who has to go through further appeal process to get the information due to him under the Act.