CIC upholds Indian Oil's refusal to disclose records of fuel quality inspection, fraud records

The Central Information Commission dismissed an RTI appeal seeking year-wise data from 2014 to 2023 on fuel quality inspections, chip-based manipulation cases, and consumer complaints at Indian Oil Corporation's retail outlets. CIC accepted IOCL's contention that compiling the scattered data across its 16 state offices and 73 divisional offices would disproportionately divert resources under Section 7(9) of the RTI Act. IOCL noted it conducts around 8 lakh inspections annually across its 42,000 retail outlets and is automating outlets to capture monitoring data.