Ashutosh Gautam v. Central Information Commission — CIC 2023

Considered a procedural second-appeal matter before the Central Information Commission. Considered a procedural second-appeal matter before the Central Information.

Considered a procedural second-appeal matter before the Central Information Commission.

Considered a procedural second-appeal matter before the Central Information Commission.

• The Commission exercised its §19(3) power to dispose of the second appeal — with directions on two procedural duties:
• §10 severance — the disclosable part of a record must be separated out and supplied even where part is exempt;
• §11 third-party notice — where information involves a third party who treated it as confidential, the notice-and-opportunity procedure must actually have run before disclosure or rejection.

1. **Plead severance expressly** — "to the extent any portion is exempt, the remainder be provided under §10."
2. **Track the §11 trail** — if a third-party notice was issued, ask for its copy, the response and the PIO's reasoned weightage.
3. **Demand reasons** — §19(8)(a) directions live on reasons recorded, not conclusions asserted.
4. **Dress the appeal as a sequence**: application → reply → first appeal → order → the specific default at each step.

Second appeal disposed under §19(3) with directions on §10 severance and §11 third-party-notice compliance — procedure enforced as the path to the right.

central, information, commission

• V Krishna Kumar v. Central Vigilance Commission — CIC 2022 (CIC 2022)
• Amit Kumar Srivastava v. Central Vigilance Commission — CIC 2022 (CIC 2022)
• Chief Information Commissioner v. State of Manipur (SC 2011)
• Om Prakash Kashiram v. Central Board Of Indirect Taxes — CIC 2022 (CIC 2022)
• Condonation of delay in §19(3) Second Appeal (SC 2022)

• All Central Information Commission rulings in the corpus
• All RTI cases turning on §18
• All RTI cases turning on §19
• Full case-law search
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Give me the part the exemption does not cover — blackline the rest.

Where the information was supplied by a third party in confidence, or discloses their interests — the PIO must give them a say before deciding (§11(1)).

That is a procedural illegality: first appeal on the skipped §11, and the Commission can order the process run afresh.

The sections are central-and-state — the same §10/§11 checklist travels to any SIC.

Editorial summary · expanded 27 August 2026; truncated description completed; the s.10/s.11 appellate checklist drawn from the recorded ratio.