Is a persons address a public information or private

Question 1

What are the proofs of address of

people’s residence or office has never been considered private under Indian law?

Answer 1

-telecom service providers used
to supply telephone directories to
everyone containing the names, telephone numbers and addresses of every subscriber in the city

-electoral voter lists include the addresses of all voters in each and every ward. These lists are now available online in a digital format on the
website of the Election Commission.

-Land records, containing details of
ownership, are open for public inspection across the country and play
a crucial part in ensuring confidence
in the volatile land markets in India

• all FIRs in cognisable cases
  must be displayed on the website, according to a Supreme Court judgment. These would display the
  names and addresses of the complainants and the accused
• Many of the new
  transparency initiatives such as the
  Jan Soochna Portal in Rajasthan
  make available the details of all beneficiaries of all welfare schemes administered by the State government.

Question 2

What is Avishek Goenka

v. Asish Kumar Roy (2013) case?

Answer 2

• In the Goenka case, an RTI activist wanted to provide a P.O. Box number as his address while filing a RTI application

-However, the public authority insisted that
he disclose his residential address

-The Calcutta High Court ruled in favour of the RTI applicant because the
RTI Act does not require information
seekers to disclose personal details
except those which may be required
for contacting him

-. At the same time,
the Calcutta High Court, confoundingly, also permitted authorities to
disallow P.O. boxes and insist on personal details in cases where the Public Information Officers faced “diffi-
culty”

Question 3

Both the Calcutta High Court and
the Bombay High Court followed a
consequential line of reasoning,what is that?

Answer 3

information in question should
be treated as private because its disclosure may lead to threats against
the RTI applicant.

Question 4

What is Section 8 (1)(j) of RTI act?

Answer 4

It states that “information
which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no
relationship to any public activity or
interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of
the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State
Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be,
is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such
information: Provided that the information, which cannot be denied to
the Parliament or a State Legislature
shall not be denied to any person.”