Chapter III DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION IN CERTAIN CASES AND RESTRICTIONS OF THEIR USE

(1) The statistics officer or any person or agencies authorised under this Act shall, for statistical purposes, use any information furnished under section 6 in such manner as may be prescribed. (2) No person other than a person engaged in the work of collection of statistics under this Act or preparation of statistics resultant to such collection shall be permitted to see any information schedule or any answer to a question asked, except for the purposes of a penalty under this Act. (3) No information contained in any information schedule and no answer to any question asked shall, except for the purposes of a penalty under this Act, be separately published, or disclosed without suppressing the identification of informants to any agency. (4) All statistical information published by any agency shall be arranged in such a manner so as to prevent any particulars becoming identifiable by any person (other than the informant by whom those particulars were supplied) as the particulars relating to the informant who supplied it, even through the process of elimination, unless— (a) that informant has consented to their publication in that manner; or (b) their publication in that manner could not reasonably have been foreseen by the concerned agency or any employee thereof. (5) For the purposes of sub-section (4), the Central Government may make such rules or make such arrangement, as it may consider necessary.

Notwithstanding the provisions contained in section 9 of this Act, the appropriate Government may disclose the following information, namely:— (a) information supplied by informant in respect of which disclosure is consented to in writing by the informant or by any person authorised by the said informant; (b) information otherwise available to the public under any Act or as a public document; (c) information in the form of an index or list of the names and addresses of informants together with the classification, if any, allotted to them and the number of persons engaged.

(1) Notwithstanding the provisions contained in section 9 of this Act, the appropriate Government may disclose individual returns or formats or information schedules to other agency or person or institutions or universities solely for bona fide research or statistical purposes pursuant to their functions and duties. (2) No individual return or information schedule shall be disclosed pursuant to this section unless– (a) the name and address of the informant by whom the schedule or related information was supplied is deleted; (b) every agency or person or institutions or Universities involved in the research or statistical project makes a declaration to use the schedules disclosed to them only for bona fide research or statistical purposes; and (c) the appropriate Government, making such disclosure is satisfied that the security of the schedules and any information contained therein shall not be impaired. (3) The published results of any research or statistical project shall not divulge any more information than what the agency authorised for collection of statistics could publish under this Act. (4) Every agency or person or institutions or universities to whom any individual return or information schedule is disclosed under this section shall comply with directions given by the agency authorised for collection of statistics making the disclosure relating to the schedules and any information contained therein.

Notwithstanding anything contained in section 9 of this Act, the appropriate Government may release such documents relating to information schedules, which in its opinion have attained historical importance.

The statistics officer or any person or agency authorised for collection of statistics shall, while copying or recording any statistical information collected pursuant to this Act from individual returns, information schedules, worksheets or any other confidential source by means of cards, tapes, discs, film or any other method, whether using encoded or plain language symbols for processing, storage or reproduction of particulars, take and cause to take such steps as are necessary to ensure that the security provisions of this Act are complied with.

Save as otherwise provided under this Act,— (a) no information obtained pursuant to this Act and no copy of the information in the possession of any informant shall be disclosed or used as evidence in any proceedings whatsoever; and (b) no person who has access to any information because of his official position in the collection of any statistics shall be compelled in any proceedings whatsoever to give oral testimony regarding the information or to produce any schedule, document, or record with respect to any information obtained in the course of administering this Act, except in the manner provided under this Act.