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
