IMD asks Activist to Pay GST on Fees, Receives Notice from CIC

In a recent matter in Mumbai, an activist seeking information from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) about the accuracy of their warnings and alerts was asked to pay GST on the fees by the CPIO of Mumbai IMD. As per the official GST regulation, the central levies no tax on the fee.

The RTI query was filed by the activist Chetan Kothari on September 9, 2017, who was seeking details of the correctness of the warnings and alerts being issued by the IMD, including the reasons behind these warnings, and whether they turned out to be true.

“When I sought the information, CPIO Bishwombhar first argued that the application was incomplete. When I cleared my position through e-mail, on November 2, 2017 he asked me to deposit Rs 5,808, including Rs 886 GST charges in advance, as the information was voluminous in nature. I was shocked when I was asked to deposit GST as it never fell in the ambit of either goods or services,” said Kothari.

He decided to challenge this by filing an appeal with the department, however, the appeal was summarily rejected. Kothari then filed the second appeal.

The Central Information Commission (CIC) has passed an order issuing a show-cause notice to the CPIO asking the reason for including GST in the fees. As per the order, demanding GST on such fees is illegal and unreasonable. The government entities are also not allowed to ask an advance pay (fees) for providing information under the RTI Act.

The CIC also asked the CPIO to give a reason why a maximum penalty should not be charged from them as they failed to provide the correct information within the right timeline and instead demanded GST for the service. The CPIO has been given a deadline till March 5 to provide a valid response.

The three-page order was issued by CIC M Sridhar Acharyulu, who explained, “Such an imposition of (Goods and Services) tax is not legally supported. A public authority cannot quote a price for the information, treating it as goods or service of saleable nature.”

“Besides, giving information is not even a service; being transparent is the inherent duty of a public authority and the CPIO can only collect the cost of copying charges so that the government exchequer is not affected. Therefore, the demand for GST charges made by the CPIO is illegal and unreasonable,” the order stated.