BEFORE THE APPELLATE AUTHORITY

(Under the Right to Information Act, 2005)

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE BOARD OF INDIA
Appeal No. 2499 of 2016
Sushma Rani

Appellant

Vs.
CPIO, SEBI, Mumbai

Respondent

ORDER
1.

The appellant filed an application dated December 21, 2015, under the Right to
Information Act, 2005 (hereinafter referred to as RTI Act). The respondent vide letter
dated January 18, 2016, responded to the appellant. The appellant has filed this appeal
dated July 30, 2016 (received at SEBI on August 6, 2016), against the said response. I have
carefully considered the application, the response and the appeal and find that the matter
can be decided based on the material available on record.

2.

From the appeal, I note that the appellant is aggrieved by the respondents response to her
application.

3.1

In this appeal, the appellant has requested for information inter alia regarding details of
amounts deposited in her account on June 25, 2016; May 11, 2016 and July 13, 2016
alongwith status of her third refund.

3.2

I note that under Section 19(1) of the RTI Act, an aggrieved person may prefer the first
appeal within thirty days from the receipt of the response from the CPIOof the concerned
public authority. In the instant case, the impugned response from the respondentis dated
January 18, 2016. The appellant, therefore, should have filed the first appeal by
February2016, against the said response. As noted above, the appellant has filed this first
appealon July 30, 2016 (received at SEBI on August 6, 2016). The first appeal has been
made approximately 5 months after the last date permissible under the RTI Act. In this
appeal, the appellant has neither provided any explanation for the delay nor sought
condonation of delay. In this context, I note that the Honble CIC in Dr. A.K. Singh vs.
Union Public Service Commission (Order dated March 9, 2009), had observed: This Commission
has been considerate in condoning delays in appeal in most cases. However, this is usually in response to a
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request for such condoning. In this case there is no such request either before the first appellate authority or
before us, only an explanation for the delay in first appeal, which seeks to declare that having failed in
court appellant took recourse to an appeal under RTI. This reflects not any impediment but basicallylack
of comprehension, even an affront to the law, which can hardly be taken as a valid excuse For the above
reasons this appeal fails and is hereby dismissed.In view of the aforesaid observations and in the
absence of any reason that prevented the appellant from filing the first appeal in time, I
consider this appeal as time barred and hence, liable to be dismissed.
3.3.1 Without prejudice to the foregoing, I note that in his response, the respondent provided
the appellant with the following information
i.

ii.

As informed by the concerned department, the information sought i.e. copy of status
report of the appellants requests dated June 5, 2013;July 4, 2015 and December 19,
2015, were not available in the records of SEBI.
However, the appellants letter dated June 5, 2013, was received by SEBI.
Accordingly, it was informed as under
a.

b.

Application for refund of Ms. Sushma Garg (bearing reference no: 347),who
had sought refunds in respect of three deposit accountsOf the aforesaid three
deposit accounts, one deposit account was refunded by SEBI and the other
deposit account was claimed to have already beenrefunded by Sahara India
Real Estate Corporation Limited (Sahara).For the third deposit account,
details of investments did not matched with the records submitted by Sahara
to SEBI. The status of the same was communicated to the appellant vide
SEBI letters dated January 30, 2014 and July 2, 2015(copy enclosed). Further,
additional documents were sought from the appellant vide SEBI letter dated
December 22, 2015.
As per the records submitted by Sahara to SEBI, the amount had already been
refunded by them to Ms. Sakshi (Minor, bearing reference no: 357). The
aforesaid information was also communicated to the appellant vide SEBI letter
dated January 29, 2014 (copy enclosed). Further, additional documents were
sought from the appellant vide SEBI letter dated December 22, 2015.

3.3.2 Upon a consideration of paragraph 3.3.1, I find that the requisite information in respect of
the appellants request for information had been provided by the respondent. I, therefore,
find no deficiency in the respondents response to the appellants application.

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3.4

I note that the appellants request for information through several queriescontained in this
appeal has been raised for the first time at this appeal stage. A request at first appeal,
different from what the appellant had raised with the respondent is impermissible, as was
held by the Honble CIC in the matters of Anil K. Sahore vs. CPIO, Coast Guard Headquarters
(Decision dated July 13, 2006), Ms. Farhana Haneef, Aligarh vs. SBI, Mumbai (Decision dated
December 21, 2011) and Shri. Ajit Kumar Roy vs. Inland Waterways Authority, NOIDA (Decision
dated February 8, 2012). If the appellant wants any new information, she is free to approach
the respondent with application fees and additional fees for cost of information, as
envisaged under the RTI Act read with the Right to Information Rules, 2012.

4.

I, therefore, find that there is no need to interfere with the decision of the respondent. The
appeal is accordingly dismissed.

Place: Mumbai
Date: September 6, 2016

S. RAMAN
APPELLATE AUTHORITY
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE BOARD OF INDIA

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