9911796707
TMI Blog2011 (12) TMI 23X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... case that upon complaints of corruption against Ms. Jyoti Balasundaram, Member, CESTAT, the President of the CESTAT - a former Chief Justice of a High Court, made some adverse entries in the Annual Confidential Report (ACR) of Ms. Jyoti Balasundaram for the year 2000-01. The petitioner also alleges that subsequently, Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue opened a file with the subject "Follow-up action on the integrity in the ACR for the year 2000-01 in respect of Ms. Jyoti Balasundaram, Member, (Tech), CESTAT". According to the petitioner, proper action was not taken in the matter and the file was closed in favour of Ms. Jyoti Balasundaram. 3. The petitioner filed an application under the RTI Act on 07.10.2009 seeking inspection and ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ion 8(1)(j), since it is not a disclosure of the personal information, viz. the ACR, but disclosure of information which puts in question the integrity of a Member of a Tribunal and, therefore, it concerns public interest. 6. On 23.03.2011 after hearing the parties, the following order came to be passed by the Court: "1. There are two issues that arise for consideration in this petition. One is whether the notes in the file opened by the Respondent consequent upon certain notings in the Annual Confidential Record ("ACR") of one of the members of CESTAT can be disclosed to the Petitioner. The second issue is whether the information can be withheld in view of Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 ("RTI Act‟) and whethe ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e sought are in the personal files of officers working at the levels of Deputy Secretary, Joint Secretary, Director, Additional Secretary and Secretary in the Government of India. Appointments to these posts are made on a comparative assessment of the relative merits of various officers by a departmental promotion committee or a selection committee, as the case may be. The evaluation of the past performance of these officers is contained in the ACRs. On the basis of the comparative assessment a grading is given. Such information cannot but be viewed as personal to such officers. Vis-à-vis a person who is not an employee of the Government of India and is seeking such information as a member of the public, such information has to be vi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... lso be third party information. These two distinct categories of third party information have been recognized under Section 11(1) of the Act. It is not possible for this Court in the circumstances to read the word "or" as "and". The mere fact that inspection of such files was permitted, without following the mandatory procedure under Section 11(1) does not mean that, at the stage of furnishing copies of the documents inspected, the said procedure can be waived. In fact, the procedure should have been followed even prior to permitting inspection, but now the clock cannot be put back as far as that is concerned. 25. The logic of the Section 11(1) RTI Act is plain. Once the information seeker is provided information relating to a third party, ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... his Court in the first paragraph of this judgment was answered in the affirmative by the CIC. This Court reverses the CIC's impugned order and answers it in the negative. 27. The impugned order dated 12th June 2008 of the CIC and the consequential order dated 19th November 2008 of the CIC are hereby set aside. The appeals by Mr. Kejriwal will be restored to the file of the CIC for compliance with the procedure outlined under Section 11 (1) RTI Act limited to the information Mr. Kejriwal now seeks". 10. Therefore, except in cases involving overriding public interest, the ACR record of an officer cannot be disclosed to any person other than the officer himself/herself. 11. The decision relied upon by the petitioner in Centre for Earth Scie ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
