Quick Reply: A villager asked the Union Ministry of Rural Development for the muster rolls, vouchers and expenditure of MGNREGA works in his village panchayat. The Central Information Commission upheld the Ministry's transfer of the application to the Uttar Pradesh public authority under RTI s.6(3) and found the Ministry's steps satisfactory. The practical lesson: village-level MGNREGA records sit with the state-side PIO, so file there first and save a transfer cycle.
Case report · Central Information Commission · order signed 9 July 2019
| Forum | Central Information Commission, New Delhi |
|---|---|
| Case | Second Appeal Nos. CIC/MOURB/A/2017/179839/MORLD and CIC/MORLD/A/2017/179787, clubbed |
| Information Commissioner | Neeraj Kumar Gupta |
| Order | signed with date 9 July 2019, heard 9 July 2019, indexed on Indian Kanoon as Daddan Singh vs Ministry Of Rural Development on 12 July, 2019 |
| Fetched from | Indian Kanoon, doc 142165746 |
The Commission observed that the action and steps taken by the respondent in responding to the RTI application were satisfactory, and hence no further intervention of the Commission was required. Both appeals, which concerned an identical RTI application dated 22 July 2017, were clubbed and disposed of.
The appellant sought, among other things, the work done under MGNREGA since 2005 in Huzurpur village panchayat, with a certified copy of the total expenditure, the number of labourers, the muster roll, cash memos, bill vouchers and the related estimates, along with housing-scheme allotment lists and the social audit report. The Central Public Information Officer responded on 25 July 2017 and 19 June 2019. The respondent informed the Commission that the subject matter of the application related to the State Government of Uttar Pradesh, and that the application had accordingly been transferred under section 6(3) of the RTI Act to that public authority with intimation to the appellant by letter dated 25 July 2017.
The order also records that the appellant's first appeal dated 22 August 2017 was not disposed of by the first appellate authority, which is what pushed the matter to the Commission under section 19(3). The Commission's acceptance of the transfer reflects the scheme of section 6(3): where an application relates to information held by another public authority, the receiving officer must transfer it to that authority rather than answer it himself.
Village-level MGNREGA records, meaning muster rolls, labour lists, bills and vouchers, are created and held by the state-side chain of the Gram Panchayat, the Janpad Panchayat and the block. An RTI addressed to the Union Ministry will be transferred under section 6(3), exactly as happened here, and every transfer costs weeks. Address the application to the PIO of the Gram Panchayat or the block office in the first place, and name the village panchayat and the years as this appellant did. If your application is transferred, track it with the receiving authority rather than filing fresh. If the first appellate authority sits silent, a second appeal to the Information Commission lies, which is the route this appellant took.
The Mahatma Gandhi NREGA, 2005 stood repealed on 1 July 2026 and was replaced by the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025, so works records created since then belong to the new scheme, but the transfer logic for village-level records is unchanged.
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Last reviewed: 12 September 2026.