Personal information exempt from RTI disclosure unless larger public interest justifies; third party must receive notice and hearing under Section 11 before any disclosure order.

ORDER :

ABASAHEB D. SHINDE, J.

Heard.

2. Rule. Rule is made returnable forthwith. With the consent of the parties, heard finally at the admission stage.

3. By this Writ Petition, the petitioner has challenged the impugned order dated 15.01.2015 passed by the Commissioner, State Information Commission, Bench at Aurangabad in Appeal No.2014/RMA/ Appeal/CR/3593 by which the said Appellate Authority has directed the Information Officer to provide the information in respect of service record of the petitioner.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner would urge that the petitioner initially was appointed as Police Sub-Inspector and at the relevant time, he was working as Deputy Superintendent of Police at Anti-Corruption Bureau, Latur. The respondent No.1 herein who infact has no concern whatsoever to seek the information about service record of the petitioner nor belongs to the caste of the petitioner, applied for seeking information in respect of service record of the petitioner from the Information Officer as per the provisions of Section 11 of ‘The Right to Information Act, 2005 (hereinafter referred in short ‘the RTI Act’)

5. It is further contended that the application filed by the respondent No.1 was rejected by the Information Officer so also the First Appeal filed by him before the first Appellate Authority came to be rejected on 02.09.2014. He would submit that respondent No.1 thereafter, preferred Second Appeal before the Commissioner, State Information Commission, Bench at Aurangabad (hereinafter called as ‘Second Appellate Authority’). The Second Appellate Authority has shown total disregard to the provisions of Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, as if at all the personal information of the petitioner was to be supplied, the Second Appellate Authority ought to have arrived at a subjective satisfaction as to whether the personal information of the petitioner regarding his service record involves a larger public interest.

6. He further submits that since the information sought is in respect of a third party (petitioner herein ) therefore, in view of Section 11 of the RTI Act, the petitioner ought to have been given sufficient opportunity of hearing. He therefore, urged that the Writ Petition deserves to be allowed by setting aside the impugned order.

7. Per contra, learned counsel Mr. Suryawanshi appearing for respondent No.1 submits that the information was pertaining to the social status of the petitioner as according to learned counsel for respondent No.1, the petitioner has secured employment from reserved category. He would further submit that in order to ascertain whether the tribe validity certificate submitted by the petitioner while securing the said employment is genuine or not, the Respondent No.1 felt it necessary to seek information in that regard.

8. He would further submit that securing public employment on the basis of so called validity certificate, have affected the public at large and particularly those who are belonging to Scheduled Caste. He therefore, urge that the Second Appellate Authority has rightly allowed the appeal filed by respondent No.1 thereby, directing the Information Officer to supply the information about the service record of the petitioner.

9. Having heard rival submissions advanced by learned counsel for the petitioner and learned counsel appearing for the respondent No.1 as well as learned AGP, the provision of RTI Act that falls for consideration reads thus :

“8. Exemption from disclosure of information-(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen,-

(a) information, disclosure of which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State, relation with foreign State or lead to incitement of an offence;

(b) information which has been expressly forbidden to be published by any Court of law or tribunal or the disclosure of which may constitute contempt of Court;

(