CERTIFICATES OF GOVT EMPLOYEES UNDER RTI

Date: 07-03-2015                                                                                           By email

To,

Chief Information Commissioner

Central Information Commission,

New Delhi.

Email: secy-cic@nic.in

Hon’ble Sir,

Subject: Decisions No.: CIC/SS/A/2013/002007-YA,

CIC/SS/A/2013 /002514-YA and  CIC/SS/A/2013/002008-YA

dated 13-11-2014 –REVIEW

As part of social audit and citizen participation in governance, I happened to peruse captioned decisions.

Denial of caste certificates of employees have been upheld vide above decisions u/s 8.1.j [personal information], based on following reasons:

A. There is no larger public interest

B. Judgement dated 03-10-2012 of Hon’ble Supreme Court in Special Leave Petition (Civil) No. 27734 of 2012-Girish Ramchandra Deshpande Versus Central Information Commr & Ors.

I request review of this decision by larger bench based on following averment:

A. There is no larger public interest:

I quote as under from judgement dated 04-03-2013 of Punjab & Haryana High Court in CWP No.4239 of 2013 (O&M) - Vijay Dheer v/s State Information Commission

“…….A part of information/documents sought by the complainant, relates to the mode of appointment/promotion of a person on a public post, therefore, Information / documents to that extent fall under the domain of larger public interest. The documents on the basis of which a person has sought an appointment in a public office becomes the documents of larger public interest." [emphasis added]

B. Judgement dated 03-10-2012 of Hon’ble Supreme Court:

This judgement has been as usual over-stretched. Hon’ble Court has decided that following information is personal information of employee:

Copies of all memos issued to the third respondent, show cause notices and orders of censure/punishment, income tax returns, property details, borrowings, investment etc and information relating to performance of  duties by employee. Even this has to be disclosed if there is larger public interest.

Certificates or documents submitted to get employment in Govt is not mentioned in above judgement nor it relates to performance of employee. In addition in judgement mentioned at A, it is clear that such certificates are in larger public interest.

Thus captioned decisions suffer error on the face of them and need review in larger public interest, good governance and letter and spirit of RTI, more so when recruitment scams [involving even Governor [ MP State], Chief Minister [Haryana] and their relatives] are surfacing and more are waiting to be out.

I am also attaching my letter dated 31-07-2014, which may kindly be read with this petition. I am avoiding repetition for brevity.

Copy of above decision is enclosed for ready reference.

Yours faithfully,

J. P. Shah

Encls: a/a

Copy to:

Hon’ble Yashovardhan Azad

Information Commissioner, CIC, New Delhi

Email: yashovardhanazad@nic.in

-Kindly cogitate for future decisions in the interest of RTI and good governance.