RTI filed on the address of the tenant who vacated the house without paying rent, but…
When a person rents out a property to a tenant, an agreement is signed between the two, which states the terms and conditions under which the property is being leased.
If a tenant refuses or fails to pay the monthly rent, the landlord can approach the court to evict the tenant from the house. These property disputes are quite common, and many such cases are brought to court.
However, what happens if the tenant vacates the property without paying the rent due to the landlord?
Do you think there is any way by which the landlord can know the present address of the tenant and recover the dues?
A recent decision by the Central Information Commission (CIC) has shed some light on this question.
In a dispute, a landlord named V Venkatapathy sought information about the new address of a tenant who fled without paying the rent.
The property owner filed a Right to Information (RTI) application before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), Tamil Nadu, to obtain details about the residential address of the tenant. Financial Express.
The landlord claimed that the tenant acting as LIC Star agent vacated the property without informing him and did not pay the dues.
However, the report said that the CPIO rejected the owner’s application citing Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act 2005.
As per Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, “Information which relates to personal information, the disclosure of which has nothing to do with any public activity or interest, or which causes an undue invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the Appellate Authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the wider public interest justifies the disclosure of such information.”
The landlord then approached the First Appellate Authority (FAA) and filed another petition on November 23, 2020. But the FAA also dismissed the appeal and upheld the CPIO’s order.
Subsequently, the owner filed a second appeal before the CIC, stating that the information sought was not provided to him, as per the report.
The CIC, in its order dated October 3, 2022, said that since the dispute relates to non-payment of rent, the complaint under the RTI Act cannot be resolved.
The CIC upheld the decision of the CPIO and said that the residential address details of the tenant cannot be disclosed as it comes under their personal information.