RTI - Confidential Report of CESTAT Member – CIC to Decide – High Court
THE appellant - the legendary crusader, RK Jain wanted information about some adverse entries allegedly made in the Annual Confidential Report of a Member/Vice-President of CESTAT for the year 2000-01 and follow-up action thereupon. The CPIO of CESTAT refused to divulge any information on the ground that it was exempted under Section 8(1)(i) of the RTI Act. The writ petition filed before the Single Judge has been decided vide orders dated 08.12.2011 [] whereby the Single Judge held that the information sought by the appellant is “the third party information” wherein the third party may plead a “privacy? defence and the proper question would be as to whether divulging of such an information is in the public interest or not. Thus, the matter has been remitted back to the Chief Information Commissioner to consider this issue after following the procedure prescribed in Section 11 of the RTI Act and then decide the same.
The appellant filed an appeal against the decision of the Single Judge, before a Division Bench.
According to the appellant, there were certain complaints on corruption against a Member of the CESTAT. After examining this complaint, the then President of CESTAT who was former Chief Justice of High Court made certain adverse entries in the ACR of the said Member, which pertained to the year 2000-01. According to the appellant, on the basis of the said ACR, Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance opened another file with the subject “follow up action on the integrity in the ACR for the year 2000-01 in respect of Member, CESTAT.” Ultimately, this file was closed without taking any proper action. The appellant on this premise wanted inspection of the file as well as the copies of the Note Sheets and correspondence. He, thus, filed an application under RTI Act on 07.10.2009 seeking information and copies of the Note Sheets and correspondence pages.
The High Court Division Bench observed, "What is important is that the procedure under Section 11(1), which is mandatory has to be followed which includes, giving of notice to the concerned officer information whose ACR is sought for. If that officer, in the present case the Ex Member of CESTAT, pleads private defence that defence has to be examined while deciding the issue as to whether the private defence is to prevail or there is an element of overriding public interest which would outweigh the private defence."