Hiding of payment of Service Tax is a Trade secret of Govt Officer(!)

The "Right Thinking Indians Association" Raipur Chhattisgarh has sought information and document about service tax payment position about service providers of NRDA (Naya Raipur Development Authority) project, Raipur, Chhattisgarh. The CPIO of Central Excise, Ahmadabad has denied information on the ground that the information related is of commercial confidence and trade secret of the third party. The III rd party here as per CPIO means M/s Datta & Datta Associates, Ahmadabad. The question arises when a citizen of India wants to know about the amount service tax paid in a project of a State, how it can construed that it is commercial confidence. It is obvious that either no Service Tax has been paid by the said favored party namely M/s Datta & Datta Associates, Ahmadabad or less Service Tax has been paid. In all probability, the Govt officer has been awarded and now the CPIO has undertaken the self imposed responsibility to protect such parties, otherwise there is no such necessity to deny information which is kept in Govt office and lying with Govt Authorities. We are not asking about any Trade secrets of a party. We are simply asking about whether the party working in NRDA project is registered with Central Excise Department or not and secondly whether Service Tax has been paid or not. In case the same has been paid , the amount of Service Tax paid.

The RTI Act, 2005 has been framed to bring transparency and accountability, to contain corruption and  finally for setting out a practical regime of "right to information"  but here the CPIO, Shriman R.M Gautam, the Deputy Commissioner of Central Excise, Ahmadabad, it is a trade secret. In one way, he is right(!) Giving protection money & taking protection money has already become a trade and the Govt officer is not willing to share his secrets with the public. 

We are thankful to the DGST, Mumbai to circulate our RTI Application all over India as the service providers are spread all over India. We are appealing against this wrong decision of CPIO as we are determined for development of our country.