UPSC v. Pinki Ganeriwal

2. The information (a) and (b) above has already been provided to the respondent. As regards information at (c) above, the petitioner has already provided the list of the recommended candidates along with their inter se seniority-cum-merit and the same is available at page 43 of the paper book. The petitioner, however, has declined to provide information such as date of birth, institution and year of passing graduation, field experience, marks obtained in interview and the caste of the selected candidates.

3. The Central Information Commission vide impugned order dated 07.06.2010, while dealing with the plea of the petitioner that being personal information of the selected candidates, the aforesaid information is exempt from disclosure under Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, inter alia, held as under:- “In this case although the information can arguably be treated as personal information, under no circumstances can information given for participation in a public activity like a public examination be deemed to have no relationship to such public activity. Shri Kamal Bhagat, Jt. Secretary, has argued that it is not the practice in the UPSC to disclose interview results for those candidates as are not selected. In this case, however, appellant Ms. Pinki Ganeriwal has asked for information only regarding „selected‟ candidates. This information which was not received by the appellant on the ground taken by the CPIO, UPSC, will now be provided to appellant Ms. Pinki Ganeriwal within 10 working days from the date of receipt of this decision notice. The appeal is thus allowed. There will be no costs, since appellant has not been compelled to travel to be heard, and the responses of CPIO, although held to be inadequate, were made according to the time mandated and as per CPIO‟s genuine understanding of the law, and therefore not liable to penalty.”

4. A similar issue came up for consideration before this Court in W.P.(C) No. 6508/2010 titled UPSC vs. Mator Singh, where the respondent before this Court had inter alia sought information such as particulars (name, qualification and experience) of eligible applicants for appointment to 7 post of Principal (female) reserved for Scheduled Castes in response to UPSE special advertisement No. 52/2006. The CPIO declined to provide the aforesaid information and the first appeal filed by the respondent was also dismissed. In a second appeal filed by the respondent, the Central Information Commission directed disclosure of the aforesaid information. Setting aside the order passed by the Commission, this Court, inter alia, held as under:-

6. In the case before this Court no finding has been recorded by the Commission that it was in the larger public interest to disclose the information with respect to the qualification and experience of other shortlisted candidates. In the absence of recording such a finding the Commission could not have directed disclosure of the aforesaid information to the respondent.”

5. In the present case, the information such as date of birth, institution and year of passing graduation, field experience and caste is personal information of the selected candidates. There is no finding by the Commission that it was in larger public interest to disclose the aforesaid personal information of the recommended candidates. Even in his application seeking information, the respondent did not claim that any larger public interest was involved in disclosing the aforesaid information. In the absence of such a claim in the application and a finding to this effect by the Commission, no direction for disclosure of the aforesaid personal information could have been given.

6. For the reasons stated hereinabove, the impugned order dated 07.06.2010 passed by the Central Information Commission is hereby set aside. The writ petition stands disposed of. No order as to costs. V.K. JAIN, J NOVEMBER 08, 2013 BG